LGBT sports blog Outsports has
named Gus Kenworthy kissing his boyfriend Matt Wilkas, an actor, on
live television at the Winter Olympics in South Korea its “gay
sports moment of 2018.”
The kiss was broadcast live by NBC.
Outsports said that their tweet
of the kiss went viral, with more than 900,000 impressions.
“It was only 10 years earlier that
NBC refused to acknowledge Australian diver Matthew Mitcham being
openly gay at the Beijing Olympics as he won a gold medal, ignoring
his boyfriend cheering him on in the stands,” Outsports
wrote. “And it was in 2016 when an NBC Olympic announcer
called the wife of a Brazilian women's beach volleyball player her
'husband.'”
Kenworthy, a 27-year-old freestyle
skier from Telluride, Colorado, came out gay soon after winning the
silver medal in men's slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Sochi, Russia.
“It’s something I was too scared to
do for myself,” Kenworthy told the AP about the kiss. “To be able
to do that, to give him a kiss, to have that affection broadcast to
the world, is incredible.
“The only way to really change
perceptions, to break down barriers, break down homophobia, is
through representation. That’s definitely not something I had as a
kid. I never saw a gay athlete kissing their boyfriend at the
Olympics. I think if I had, it would’ve made it easier for me,”
he added.