During an appearance on Ellen
DeGeneres' daytime talk show, out Olympian Gus Kenworthy reiterated
his criticism of the White House's selection of Vice President Mike
Pence to lead the 2018 U.S. Olympic delegation to South Korea.
The 25-year-old Kenworthy is one of
just a handful of out athletes heading to the Olympic Winter Games.
A second out athlete on Team USA is figure skater Adam Rippon.
“It just seems like such a strange
choice for me, because I feel like we're in 2018 almost – not
almost, we're in 2018 – we're going into the Olympics and myself
and Adam Rippon are the two first openly gay males competing in the
Olympics and it's just incredible to see how times have changed,
because of people like you and athletes in the past and so many
people that have paved the way. But then to have someone leading the
delegation that's like directly attacked the LGBT community and a
cabinet in general that just sort of stands against us and has tried
to do things that set us back. It just seems like a bad fit,”
Kenworthy
said.
“I feel like the Olympics is all
about inclusion and people coming together and it seems like it's not
really doing that,” he added.
“Yeah, I agree with you,” DeGeneres
responded. “I think it's a weird choice.”
(Related: Adam
Rippon: “Not trying to pick a fight” with Mike Pence.)