Internationally, we are winning: Our athletic counterparts are showing up.
The 2026 Paralympics began on March 6 in Milan and will run through Sunday. The 2026 Winter Olympics was monumentally queer and the Paralympics is it shaping up to be just as dazzling.
A record of 45 publicly out athletes competed in the 2026 Olympics, with 11 medals total from the coined “Team LGBTQ+.” Athletes among the likes of Amber Glenn, Elis Lundholm, Brittany Bowe, and Hilary Knight represented the LGBTQ+ community at the Winter Olympics this year, and they made us proud.
There are three out queer athletes competing in the 2026 Winter Paralympics, according to PinkNews:
Jake Adicoff
Jake Adicoff, cross-country skier for Team USA, has competed in three previous Paralympics. Adicoff has been open about his plan to bring home four golds. In 2022, he added gold to his collection of Olympic medals; the current count is sitting at 4 medals.
Adicoff believes that the most important element to winning an Olympic medal is confidence. While he went into the 2022 games with the same goals, he didn’t fully believe in his ability to achieve it. He vows it is different this time around.
Jo Butterfield
Jo Butterfield, a wheelchair curler for Team Great Britain, has competed in multiple games, in different events. In 2016, she competed in the club throw event, setting a world record and winning gold. In 2022, she switched to curling. This time around, she will be competing in mixed doubles wheelchair curling alongside Jason Kean. On Thursday, Butterfield and Kean gained their first win of the games. Her and her partner were eliminated on Monday.
Michael ‘Mikey’ O’Hearn
Michael O’Hearn, an alpine skier for Team USA, will be making his Olympic debut. O’Hearn calls ski racing both his “purpose” and his “sanctuary”. O’Hearn was born with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, “a congenital condition that causes joint contractures and affects muscle development throughout the body.” O’Hearn talks about how his parents had been told he wouldn’t survive, and that he would never walk. On Instagram, he said that he challenged the limitations of his diagnosis and “chose resilience over resignation.”
Stay tuned for more olympic coverage from OFM!
Photos courtesy of social media
