TOKYO — My, oh my, has the definition of who can be an Olympic hero ever changed. Is there any doubt? It’s as certain as a fierce purple elf’s love for the American flag-bearer at the Summer Games.
Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird are the power couple of Team USA. They met for the first time at the Olympics in Brazil. Five years later, the purple-haired soccer star and ponytailed point guard are engaged to be married.
Bird, who has interned in the Nuggets front office while winding down her brilliant playing career, has a spiffy collection of four Olympic gold medals. Rapinoe, who got down on one knee in Antigua during the COVID-19 pandemic and proposed, has won gold at the Games only once.
But who’s keeping score?
Well, Bird and Rapinoe do. Did you really expect anything else? In addition to being romantic and supportive, this relationship is feisty and competitive.
“I could never catch up. But I can’t fall further behind,” Rapinoe joked Friday night after her clutch goal during a shootout clinched the USWNT a spot in the tourney semifinals after a hard-fought victory against the Netherlands.
Bird, leading the basketball team in assists at age 40 as it rolls toward another Olympic championship, was voted by her peers to carry the flag and proudly led the red, white and blue parade into the stadium at the ceremony that opened these Games in Japan.
“Unlike me,” Rapinoe said, “she doesn’t like a lot of the attention. But I think you could tell … just how much it meant to her.”
Of course, anybody would seem shy and reserved next to Rapinoe. The tiny 36-year-old winger is known to drop F-bombs like commas in a sentence. She took a knee during the national anthem in support of Colin Kaepernick before all the cool kids did. During the World Cup in 2019, she engaged in a war of words with then-President Donald Trump.
Nine long years ago in London, on the eve of the Olympic championship game against Japan, Rapinoe used her forum to carry the banner in support of the LGBTQ community at a time when such bold talk raised eyebrows.
“There are not many athletes who are out. And I think it’s something that’s important. I know it feels important to me,” Rapinoe told me in August 2012, explaining why she wanted to educate the public that two women in love was not only OK but beautiful.
A journalist in the scrum surrounding Rapinoe sighed heavily and muttered his displeasure into the back of my neck: “Could we get back to talking about soccer?”
Nobody becomes a pioneer by safely staying in the lane defined by the double-yellow lines of the way things have always been done. The definition of Olympic hero has become more inclusive during the past decade, in no small part because Rapinoe was an elf who dared to roar. There’s not an athlete on the planet who thrills me more. Why? Rapinoe embraces the big moment without blinking, then gets up on the big stage and dances like nobody’s watching.
The Summer Games have never been more gay and proud than they are now.
There are more than 175 openly LGBTQ athletes competing here, according to data compiled by Outsports.
That’s kind of a big deal. In fact, if the LGBTQ community were a country, it would rank 12th in the medal count, behind Canada on the leaderboard.
After Tom Daley of Great Britain won gold in synchronized diving off the 10-meter platform, he wrapped himself in the rainbow flag as well as the Union Jack.
“I feel incredibly proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion. When I was younger I didn’t think I’d ever achieve anything because of who I was,” Daley said last week when he and teammate Matty Lee scored 471.81 to edge Cao Yuan and Aisen Chen of China.
“There are more openly out athletes than at any Olympic Games previously. I came out in 2013, and when I was younger, I always felt like the one that was alone and different and didn’t fit. There was something about me that was never going to be as good as what society wanted me to be. I hope that any young LGBT person out there can see that no matter how alone you feel right now, you are not alone. You can achieve anything.”
The Twitter profile of 20-year-old U.S. swimmer Erica Sullivan reads like a master class in self-deprecating snark: I’m good at not drowning… sometimes. Yes, I’m the gay one
After finishing second to American superstar Katie Ledecky in the first-ever 1,500 freestyle held for women at the Olympics, Sullivan ebulliently declared the silver medal a victory dedicated to her Japanese heritage and queer-girl power.
“I’m multicultural. I’m queer. I’m a lot of minorities. That’s what America is,” said Sullivan, whose mother is a Japanese citizen living in the United States. “To me, America is not about being a majority. It’s about making your own start. The American dream is coming to a country to be able to establish what you want to do with your life.”
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Kiszla: As power couple of the Olympics, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird changing definition of modern sports hero - The Denver Post
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