Homosexuality and the Olympic movement: towards better Games

Ian Jobling, Director of the Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Queensland, looks at the history of gay Olympians. Sport remains “one of the last bastions of cultural and institutional homophobia” in Western societies. The first openly gay Olympians did not compete until the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. But the first known gay Olympic

Ieva Ruzgytė is the first athlete to represent Lithuania in the “Gay Games”, taking place in Paris in 2018. We talked with Ieva about what made her decide to participate in this tournament and in the events of Baltic Pride 2016. You are an accomplished judo master. What motivated you to talk about the importance