Out athlete Adam Rippon reportedly turned down a request from Vice President Mike Pence to meet.

The 28-year-old Rippon, who came out as gay to Skating magazine in 2015, is one of just a handful of out athletes heading to the Olympic Winter Games in South Korea.

In January, Rippon, a figure skater, criticized the White House's selection of Pence to lead the 2018 U.S. Olympic delegation.

“If it were before my event, I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren't a friend of a gay person but that they think that they're sick,” Rippon said, a reference to Pence's reported support for therapies that attempt to alter the sexuality or gender identity of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. A Pence spokesman in 2016 denied that Pence supports so-called conversion therapy.

Pence's press secretary responded to Rippon's comments, saying that the claim that Pence supports such therapies is “totally false” and “has no basis in fact.”

(Related: Trump once joked that Mike Pence “wants to hang” all gay people.)

According to USA Today, Pence's staff asked the U.S. Olympic Committee to set up a conversation between Pence and Rippon just one hour after Rippon's comments were published online. Rippon turned down the offer, according to two sources.