Thank you so much for being here! I am a full-time freelance writer and paid subscriptions to this newsletter allow me to continue to do work like this, as well as support the community that we are building here, which includes events like the book club (this month’s selection is UP TO SPEED by Christine Yu) and our (very active) paid subscriber Discord server. You can upgrade here:

Also, I was on the Landline podcast with Mary Mahoney talking about the Olympics and Heated Rivalry and many many other things. Listen here!

As usual for my content, “queer” content is more than just gay people doing sports. At Out of Your League, queerness is a politic that encompasses an anti-oppression framework. Now let’s finish off the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games, and I’ll see everyone back here in a couple of weeks for the Paralympics. You can also see all my Winter Olympics coverage here.

Also! Great news! After two weeks of watching and writing about these Olympics, I have FINALLY stopped writing “Milano Cortada” every time I type out the name of the Games. Please clap.

The gold medal game in women’s hockey was so gay! There were a record NINE out players between the two teams (which, let’s be honest, seems like an undercount). The day before the gold medal game, Team USA captain Hilary Knight proposed to her speedskater girlfriend, Brittany Bowe! They started dating four years ago, at the Beijing Olympics! Hilary Knight is also one of Team USA’s flag bearers for the Closing Ceremony!

Team USA won in overtime on an absolutely nasty goal by Megan Keller! Canada lost in overtime, which was CRUSHING! I wanted both teams to win (unlike in the men’s tournament, where the terrible vibes of the U.S. men had me actively rooting against them. At least the winning goal in the men’s game was scored by Jack Hughes, who has been an outspoken LGBTQ+ ally, rather than any of the more obviously MAGA men).

Both the men’s and women’s gold medal games between the U.S. and Canada went to overtime, which means we were forced to see two medal ceremonies with the saddest silver medalists since the U.S. hockey women accepted their silver medal at the 2022 Games.

I was posting on Bluesky about how different the vibe is at medal ceremonies when there is a gold medal game or match between two teams, as opposed to a race-style event where everyone crosses the finish line in order. In the former case, you are losing the gold rather than winning the silver. Similarly, in a bronze medal match, the winners are always so thrilled to win and the losers so crushed because it’s the difference between medaling and finishing off the podium.

Someone told me that there’s actually a study that’s been done on this very thing! “Even though second-place finishers had just performed objectively better than third-place finishers, the [study] found that bronze medalists, on average, appeared happier than silver medalists,” the authors wrote at The Conversation. “For silver medalists, almost winning gold is a cause for disappointment, while simply being on the medal stand can gratify a bronze medalist.”

It’s science!

These Winter Olympics have been touted as the “gender equality” Games, as women got to compete in (nearly) every sport (aside from Nordic combined). In many races, the women still compete at shorter distances (a holdover from sexist beliefs about women’s bodies being weak, or athletics damaging a women’s reproductive health), but at least they’re out there. One thing that still belies the sexist history of the Olympics (did you know that women only ended up being allowed to compete in the Games because Alice Milliat created a women’s-only Olympics?) is the broadcast coverage.

The NBC broadcast team for the women’s hockey games has drawn the most ire from viewers, as the commentary during games featuring the most dominant teams in the history of the sport have been overrun with commentary about their male relatives, cuts to which celebrity men are in the stands, and a repetition of the same “fun fact” from their media sheet.

“If you're rooting for the U.S., it means watching a team stacked with talented and innovative players.,” Lesley Ryder writes at Defector. “Team USA is undefeated and riding a record 331-minute shutout streak. Four-time Olympian and captain emeritus Kendall Coyne Schofield cuts an impressive figure across the sport: two-time PWHL champion, a leader of the labor movement that led to the league’s creation, and the first woman to compete in the NHL All-Star Game's skills challenge. Would you know this from watching the NBC broadcast of Team USA’s games? Doubtful. You'd probably know more about Coyne Schofield’s baby.” 

The media’s framing of these events impacts how seriously they are taken, in general. According to TSN reporter Claire Hanna, the women’s hockey gold medal game between the U.S. and Canada was not considered a “high demand” event, meaning that media who attended got seats in the press box on a first come, first serve basis. Meanwhile, this “low demand” event had 7.7 million viewers during OT, and averaged 5.3 million throughout the game, making it the most-watched women’s hockey game in history (the men’s gold medal game, however, was considered “high demand” ofc).

But it’s not just women’s hockey that is dealing with sexist and biased coverage from American media. Male athletes are more likely to have their performances evaluated based on skill and execution, while commentary on women’s events tends to focus on how much confidence they have built. Over in women’s figure skating, we see incredibly gendered language being used to describe the women on NBC’s broadcast. After Amber Glenn missed an element in her short program, taking her out of medal contention, she was understandably emotional while waiting for her scores. Yahoo Sports chose to frame it as Glenn “needing to be consoled” after her performance. Eileen Gu clapped back at a male reporter who asked if she saw her two silver medals as “losing out” on golds, reminding him that she is the most decorated freeskier of all-time, of any gender.

And then there is the racist language, particularly in sports like figure skating. “There is so much coded language that emphasizes Western superiority and the privileging of white femininity,” Eri Lee, a figure skating coach who runs the Liberating Skating Instagram account, posted. “Isabeau [Levito] is a beautifully graceful skater, but ‘quintessential skater with perfect lines’ just feels like ‘thin white girl with ballet training’ to me. Also, decontextualized references to Alysa [Liu]’s dad’s activism in the Tiananmen Square protests is so weird. Why are you mentioning that while she’s in the kiss and cry? Model minoritize her more, I dare you.”

Canadian viewers have said the CBC team did a much better job, and I’m glad that at least one country got to watch the Olympics mostly free from terrible and bigoted commentary.

Speaking of broadcasting scandals, a Swiss commentator spent the entirety of Team Israel’s bobsled run wondering why the country was allowed to compete at the Games at all and highlighting the Israeli athlete’s comments about the genocide in Gaza. A hero! A king! The television station removed the broadcast from its website after the commentary sparked controversy. An Australian TV reporter apologized after getting drunk before going on-air, leading to her slurring through a broadcast in which she also talked about iguanas and the price of coffee in Milan. Kind of iconic tbh!

Meanwhile, the head of the sports division of the Italian public broadcaster Rai has resigned after his, uh, gaffe-strewn commentary of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. From The Guardian:

“During his commentary of the opening ceremony, [Paolo] Petrecca welcomed viewers to Rome’s Stadio Olimpico instead of Milan’s San Siro, where the event was held, before mistaking the Italian actor Matilda De Angelis for Mariah Carey and Kirsty Coventry, president of the International Olympic Committee, for Laura Mattarella, the daughter of the Italian president,” The Guardian reported. “Petrecca, who had already been barred from presenting coverage of the closing ceremony, also failed to recognise two well-known members of the Italian women’s volleyball team taking part in the torch relay and commented on Spanish athletes who are ‘always very hot’ and Chinese ones who ‘naturally … have phones in their hands.’”

Well then!

I’m sure many of you have heard about the cheating scandal in curling, in which both the men’s and women’s Canadian teams were accused of touching the stone with a finger as it was crossing the hog line, which is not allowed.

First, I’m going to share a very niche meme and I’m so sorry about this but it is too perfect not to include.

OK, back to the curling. The reason this was such a big deal and there was so little recourse for it is that, even at the Olympic level, curling is self-officiated. This stems from the fact that curling is considered to be a largely social game, and the culture of the sport is governed by what’s known as “The Spirit of Curling.” “Curlers never knowingly break a rule of the game, nor disrespect any of its traditions,” according to the World Curling website. “Should they become aware that this has been done inadvertently, they will be the first to divulge the breach.”

Curling is not the only sport that self-officiates at elite and international levels. Ultimate, which has been attempting to be added to the Summer Olympics for many years, is also self-officiated, from rec leagues all the way up to the World Championships. Like curling, Ultimate has what they call "Spirit of the Game." It is almost always an issue at World Championships and other international tournaments. The downfalls of self-officiating were also highlighted on the biggest stage in pickleball at last year's World Championships, when Allison Phillips made a bad call and her opponent was never really able to get back into the game, eventually losing. Pickleball, however, unlike curling and Ultimate, does have a referee program and have instituted officials at higher levels of the sport to hopefully avoid issues like this (officials are also human who make mistakes, but at least they are supposed to be neutral).

I understand the hesitation of sports like curling and Ultimate to change what they see as an essential part of their sport’s culture and essence, especially since they are sports that lack a lot of resources and funding. But I believe they should reconsider when they’re on a stage like the Olympics. The sentiment of “Spirit of the Game” can exist without self-officiation. But self-officiating cannot function without Spirit of the Game, and it's asking a lot of players in high-stress games to be functioning objectively.

The Canadian women ended up taking home the bronze, while the men won the gold. The men’s silver medal went to Great Britain, whose team includes Bruce Mouat, who has spoken about his coming out process and being an inspiration for other LGBTQ+ people.

My favorite gay sports discovery of these Olympics was U.S. speed skater Conor McDermott-Mostowy, whose social media brought me immense joy these last few weeks. I loved watching him and his boyfriend galavant around Milan while his boyfriend tried all the wine! He was so much fun switching skates with figure skater Danny O’Shea! He has no pre-competition rituals, which seems like the exact opposite of everything I’ve ever learned about elite athletes! He reminded people that just because he’s an athlete doesn’t mean he’s a sports gay, OKAY??

He seems fabulous and relatable, and honestly, a bit like a breath of fresh air in a world that can be really intense. In a similar vein, I really loved this Time piece about the changing culture for women’s figure skating, and the “thawing of the American ice princess.” We saw that this week, whether it was Alysa Liu yelling, “That’s what I’m fucking talking about!” into the camera after her gold medal skate, Amber Glenn talking about the difficulties of skating at the Olympics while on her period, or Canada figure skater Madeline Schizas posting about getting an extension on her university assignment so she can compete in Milan.

We don’t need all of our athletes to be relatable, but it’s also been well-documented how toxic elite sporting culture can be and the damaging impacts it has on the mental health of the players. In that vein, it’s nice to see them letting loose a little bit.