Olympian Radford ‘inspired’ by changing attitudes
Balmertown, Ont., once held painful memories for Eric Radford. The only figure skater in the tiny hockey town in northern Ontario was mercilessly bullied there.
When Radford became the first openly gay athlete to win a Winter Olympic gold medal, his skating success took him back to Balmertown recently. He was elated to find antiquated attitudes have changed there.
The town named a street in his honour. He marched in a Pride walk hand-in-hand with fiance Luis Fenero. But perhaps the most touching moment came during an elementary school talk when a young girl presented him with a picture she had drawn. It was a replica of the Instagram photo of Radford’s marriage proposal to Fenero. Radford is down on one knee and the couple is set against a rainbow background.
“She told me ‘Everybody knows you for your athletic accomplishments, but your story and you being open about your sexuality means so much to me, and I wanted to let you know that,’ ” Radford said, pulling the folded picture from his jeans pocket. “I was just so touched.
“I shared it on social media and got so many amazing comments from people. It didn’t just inspire me, I think it inspired our whole community.”
The 33-year-old, who with pairs partner Meagan Duhamel retired after the Olympics, kicked off the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Be You campaign on Friday ahead of Pride weekend in Toronto. The COC launched a pop-up store selling Be You T-shirts at a downtown Toronto mall, with proceeds going to You Can Play, a campaign dedicated to the eradication of homophobia in sports. Radford came out publicly in December 2014. He’d considered it a year earlier ahead of the Sochi Olympics, but his family, fearful of the political climate in Russia, worried for his safety. And he worried about how it might affect his skating career with Duhamel. “Especially in a pair team, people always want to have the idea that you have a romantic connection on the ice,” said Radford — consider the rampant relationship chatter around ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. “So if I were to come out publicly, and people were to know me as gay, maybe they would lose that sense, and maybe — maybe — it would affect our marks and the judges’ perception of us when they’re watching us. But that didn’t happen at all.”
Radford and Duhamel, in fact, would go undefeated that season
Especially in a pair team, people always want to have the idea that you have a romantic connection on the ice.
and capture their first of back-toback world titles. Inclusion became a theme of the Pyeongchang Games, thanks largely to the popularity of athletes like figure skater Adam Rippon and skier Gus Kenworthy, who became the first openly gay males on a U.S. Olympic team.
“I really sensed a feeling of momentum being built for the LGBT athletes,” Radford said. Canadian Olympic athletes are expected to march in a group 165-strong in Sunday’s Pride parade alongside representatives from the Toronto Blue Jays, the NHL, the NHLPA, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment and You Can Play.