Faster, Higher, Gayer

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Progress marches on. And surfs. And dives. And dribbles.

The 2024 Paris Olympics were the gayest Games yet, according to Outsports, which counted 199 out gay, lesbian. bisexual, transgender, queer and nonbinary athletes.

By contrast, the 2012 London Summer Games had 23 openly gay and lesbian athletes, and we thought that was darn good at the time.

In Paris, Team LGBTQ captured 43 medals, placing it seventh in the total medal count. (Maybe Team LGBTQ should compete as a nation. Heaven knows we already have a flag. Depending on the nature of our anthem, every medal ceremony could turn into a dance party.)

What particularly pleases me is that Team LGBTQ's medal haul bested every single country that criminalizes being gay. That's a big rainbow raspberry to all of them.

There were so many stories at the Games, ranging from the misinformation-fueled furor over an Algerian boxer's gender to the fact that more than half of the champion U.S. women's basketball team was openly LGBTQ.

But the story I want to highlight, before these Games fade into my iffy memory, is that of 25-year-old boxer Cindy Ngamba. Born in Cameroon, she moved to the United Kingdom at age 11. She was granted refugee status in 2021, because in Cameroon she could go to prison for being gay. Ngamba won a bronze in Paris, making her the first ever athlete competing as a refugee to clinch a medal.

Ngamba was the flag bearer for the Refugee Olympic Team. Obviously that team made a good choice. Obviously Cameroon didn't.