we counted 15 out gay men with olympic gold. one of them hit his head on the diving board and won anyway. icon behavior.
via Olympedia, CBC, NBC News, The Guardian and the outlets linked in each entry
Fifteen. That is how many men we could find who have won an Olympic gold medal and said, in their own words, on the record, that they are gay. We went through the lists, threw out every name that only had a rumor or somebody else's memoir behind it, and checked every medal against Olympedia's results database.
The shape of it is the story. For decades nearly all of them came out after the medal, sometimes long after, and at least one lost money for it. Then in 2008 an Australian diver said it out loud before the Games and won anyway. Since then it keeps getting less dramatic, which is the whole point. Here they are, sport by sport, oldest gold first.
gay olympic champions on ice
John Curry, Great Britain, figure skating, 1976
Curry won the men's title in Innsbruck in 1976, the first British man ever to do it, per Olympedia and The Guardian's 1976 report. Within hours, per The Guardian, "he told a marauding press that he was gay." Fifty years ago. At the Olympics. He later put it plainly, in words quoted from Bill Jones's biography by the Birmingham Post: "I lived in a homophobic world and I was a homosexual which made it very difficult." They called him "a Nureyev of the ice," per The Independent, for skating like a ballet dancer. He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1994, at 44, per The Independent and the AP obituary. The first one through the door.
Brian Boitano, United States, figure skating, 1988
Photo: John Mathew Smith via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, taken in 2003.
Boitano won the "Battle of the Brians" in Calgary, beating Canada's Brian Orser by a sliver, per Olympedia and CBC. Twenty-five years later, in December 2013, President Obama named him to the U.S. delegation for the Sochi Games, and two days after that he released a statement, per NBC Sports and the Windy City Times: "I am many things: a son, a brother, and uncle, a friend, an athlete, a cook, an author, and being gay is just one part of who I am." Sending a gay skater to Putin's Olympics was a choice. We loved the choice.
Eric Radford, Canada, figure skating, 2018
Photo: David W. Carmichael via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, taken in 2011.
Radford came out in 2014, after winning silver in Sochi, per PinkNews and The Globe and Mail. On why he waited, he told PinkNews: "My concern was that I would be known as ‘the gay athlete’ if I came out at the Olympics, rather than Eric the medalling figure skater who happens to be gay." He also joked that he was "the ultimate pair-boy." Then he went to PyeongChang and won gold in the team event, which made him the first openly gay man to win Winter Olympic gold, per the Globe and PinkNews. He married Spanish ice dancer Luis Fenero, per Attitude and Gay Times. Two skaters. Imagine the first dance.
Guillaume Cizeron, France, ice dance, 2022 and 2026
Photo: David W. Carmichael via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, taken in 2018.
Cizeron came out in May 2020 by posting a photo with his boyfriend on Instagram for the International Day Against Homophobia, per Out and Instinct. In an essay for Out he explained why: "today, not saying that I am gay is closer to pretending that I'm not." He won ice dance gold in Beijing in 2022 with Gabriella Papadakis, then again at Milan-Cortina in February 2026 with Laurence Fournier Beaudry, the first skater to win back-to-back ice dance golds with different partners, per Olympedia, the AP and AFP. It was not a quiet win. Papadakis had published a memoir accusing him of controlling behavior, which he called a smear campaign, per Reuters and AFP.
in the pool and off the board
Greg Louganis, United States, diving, 1984 and 1988
Photo: Alan Light via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, taken in 2009.
Four golds, the springboard and platform double at two straight Games, per Olympedia and CBS Los Angeles. In Seoul he hit his head on the springboard in qualifying and still won, per Olympedia. Six months before those Games he had been diagnosed HIV-positive, he told NPR. He came out at the 1994 Gay Games, per PinkNews, and went public about being gay and HIV-positive seven years after Seoul, per History.com. He told PinkNews why he waited: "If I’d discussed my sexuality while diving I would have been known as ‘the gay diver’." He married Johnny Chaillot in 2013 and they divorced in 2021, per Out and People. A head wound, a diagnosis he kept to himself, a closet, and still the best in the world. Nobody else on this list had it harder.
Bruce Hayes, United States, swimming, 1984
Hayes anchored the U.S. 4x200 freestyle relay in Los Angeles and ran down West Germany's Michael Gross on the last lap, winning by .04 seconds in a world record, per Olympedia and the Windy City Times. Olympedia says he came out "shortly after" those Games. In 1990 he became the first Olympic gold medalist to compete at a Gay Games, per the Windy City Times and Olympedia, and he told the paper what that did for him: "The Gay Games gave me the courage to come out and the awareness and willingness to get involved in our community’s political struggles." A world record, then the gay swim team. Correct order of priorities.
Mark Tewksbury, Canada, swimming, 1992
Tewksbury won the 100m backstroke in Barcelona, per Olympedia and CBC. He came out publicly in 1998, the first Canadian Olympian to do so, per CBC and The Canadian Press, and it cost him a six-figure deal as a motivational speaker, per the same two. His memoir was titled Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock. Twenty years later he told CBC: "I don't think of gay as one of my descriptors anymore." Then: "But of course it is." That's growth. The bank that dropped him did not get a book.
Ian Thorpe, Australia, swimming, 2000 and 2004
Photo: Doha Stadium Plus Qatar via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, taken in 2012.
Five golds across Sydney and Athens, per Olympedia and ABC Australia. In his 2012 autobiography he wrote, "For the record, I am not gay," per ABC and the AP. Two years later he sat down with Michael Parkinson and said: "I'm comfortable saying I'm a gay man. And I don't want young people to feel the same way that I did." For the record, the record was amended. He campaigned for marriage equality in 2017 with then-boyfriend Ryan Channing, per Star Observer and PinkNews.
Daniel Kowalski, Australia, swimming, 2000
Kowalski's gold is a relay one: he swam the heats of the 4x200 freestyle in Sydney, which earns a medal, per Olympedia and the Australian Olympic Committee. Four years earlier he medaled in the 200, 400 and 1500 freestyle at the same Games, the first swimmer to do that since 1904, per the AOC and Reuters. He came out in 2010, telling The Sunday Age he was "tired of living a lie," per Reuters and PinkNews. Looking back, he told ABC that when people asked how many girls he had slept with in the Olympic village, "my answer was always none - and that should have been a clear sign that I was probably gay." Babe. We could have told you.
Matthew Mitcham, Australia, diving, 2008
Photo: Philip Myers via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2009.
The turning point. Mitcham was out before Beijing, per ABC Australia and PinkNews, and told The Advocate that July: "I'm the first to come to the media and say, 'Hello, I'm gay!' I'm not scared." Then he won the 10m platform, Australia's first men's diving gold since 1924, and the one that stopped China sweeping every diving gold, per ABC and Reuters. He married Luke Rutherford in 2020, per PinkNews and Attitude. "Hello, I'm gay!" and then a gold medal is the most efficient sentence in this article.
Jérémy Stravius, France, swimming, 2012
Stravius was part of France's 4x100 freestyle relay that won gold in London, per Olympedia and the AP, a year after he became world champion in the 100m backstroke. In June 2021 he was one of six French athletes who talked about being gay in the Canal+ documentary Faut qu'on parle, per Demotivateur and VL Media. "I tried by all means to show everyone I was a hetero(sexual)," he told the AP, and also: "Speaking now about being gay felt easy." He told Le Parisien, per Purepeople, that he'd been with his guy for eight years. "C'est juste normal." It's just normal.
Tom Daley, Great Britain, diving, 2021
Photo: Jim Thurston via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, taken in 2012.
Daley came out in a YouTube video in December 2013, per Channel 4 News and PinkNews, and married screenwriter Dustin Lance Black in 2017, per Hello! and PinkNews. At the Tokyo Games, held in 2021, he and Matty Lee won synchronized 10m platform by 1.23 points over China, per CBC and NBC News, and he told the press conference: "I feel incredibly proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion," per NBC and Attitude. He has since tried drag. Of course he has.
on the track and the court
Ioannis Melissanidis, Greece, gymnastics, 1996
Melissanidis won the floor exercise in Atlanta, per Olympedia and Attitude, Greece's first Olympic gymnastics medal since 1896, per Neo and WeHo Online. He spoke openly about his sexuality for the first time in August 2021, per Proto Thema, and told a Greek interviewer, as Attitude reported: "If the society has any concerns about the fact that I, a fully realised man, want to fall in love with another man, it’s a problem the society should solve." Twenty-five years after the medal. He sounds like he had been rehearsing that line the whole time.
Kerron Clement, United States, track, 2008 and 2016
Clement won a relay gold in Beijing and the 400m hurdles in Rio, per Olympedia and PinkNews. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, he set an indoor 400m world record in 2005 that stood for 13 years, per Gay City News and PinkNews. He came out on National Coming Out Day 2019, at a Nike event opening a rainbow track in Los Angeles, per Gay City News and Rough Draft Atlanta. "Nothing is wrong with loving someone of the same gender. Love is love. I have an attraction to men," he said, per both PinkNews and Gay City News. He also said "I do identify as a professional gay track and field athlete," which should be printed on a jersey.
Douglas Souza, Brazil, volleyball, 2016
Souza won gold with Brazil's men's volleyball team in Rio, per Olympedia and the Correio Braziliense. He does not think gay people should have to announce anything, per ISTOÉ. "Nunca escondi ou anulei o fato de ser gay. Sempre dei muita pinta mesmo," he said in 2021, per ISTOÉ. Our translation: "I never hid or denied being gay. I was always really flamboyant." His behind-the-scenes videos from Tokyo took him past a million Instagram followers in days, per Correio Braziliense and Diário do Nordeste. By his own account, he never went in.
who we left off, and why
Other lists of gay Olympic champions are longer than this one. Some of the extra names are men who have never said it themselves, and in one case the only source is somebody else's memoir about a man who died in 1989. Others, mostly equestrians, are widely described as gay, but we could not find them saying it in their own words on a page we could read, so they are not here yet. That is our rule, not a judgment on them. Women are a separate and much longer list, and they get their own page. For the four big American leagues, the count is even smaller. Spotted an error, or a quote we missed? Tell us.
