Olympic freeskier Gus Kenworthy’s next bold move—coming out.
Author: Alyssa Roenigk

This article “Olympic freeskier Gus Kenworthy’s next bold move,” tells the
story of X-Games and Olympic medallist coming out of the closet, and telling
the world about his true sexuality.
When I first read this article, tears welled up in my eyes. Gus has been my idol
ever since I met him on the chairlift back in 2011. To see him come out and be
true to himself for whom he is, it really means a lot to me. As I am a skier, a
supporter of gay marriage and an acquaintance of Gus, I wanted to write about
this report on his ‘next bold move’ because this article truly means a lot to me.

This first aspect of the text made me think about what the ski community is
really like. As Gus quotes in the article “everyone either wears a Monster/
Redbull or Rockstar T-shirt a hat, jeans and skate shoes. Everyone listens to the
same type of music and drives the same car, and anything else is referred as
gay.”
As I thought more and more about this aspect, it really hit home by opening
the curtains to reality. I have been surrounded by skiers a lot of my life, and
what Gus speaks of is true. Skiing is not an embracing sport because of the way
they live their lives. But what’s funny is that skiing is influenced by creativity,
look at the course different, do different tricks and have a different style. Be
different to everyone else, but actually be exactly the same as them too.

The same second aspect of this text made me think about the vocabulary that
our generation uses, especially in the ski world. Words like ‘gay’ and ‘fag’ are
used as commonly as ‘stoked’ or ‘happy’. If screw up your trick or you miss a
grab, it’s referred to as gay. I can understand how Kenworthy feel’s being
surrounded by the constant drumbeat of words that are used to discriminate
who he really is. Even today I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed

and I saw a comment from someone saying how Half pipe skiing is gay. This
really upset me because out of all the words in the world, billions of words,
you use gay to describe Half pipe skiing. Where people who are just like you
and me, fighting for their right to marry the person who they love, you use the
term gay as a put down. This is one of the reasons why I chose to write about
this article.
I recommend this text to anyone one who is interested in reading about a man,
who has achieved more than most people could have dreamed of, going
through a battle that has almost wanted forced him to quit skiing and life
together, to being true to himself and letting the world know his true feelings.