Adam Rippon, Gus Kenworthy Boycotting White House Visit With Trump
- By
- Carlos Santoscoy
- | April 27, 2018
Out figure skater Adam Rippon and skier Gus Kenworthy are among the Olympians boycotting Team USA's White House visit on Friday in protest of President Donald Trump.
Also protesting is skier Lindsey Vonn, PEOPLE reported.
“All US Olympians and Paralympics are invited to visit the White House and meet the President after the Games,” Kenworthy messaged on Twitter. “Today is this year's visit and USOC spokesperson says he's never seen so many athletes turn down their invites. The resistance is real.”
Rippon told USA Today that while he was busy performing in a “Stars on Ice” show in Pittsburgh on Friday, he had not planned on going to the White House to meet the president.
“It's a convenient out,” he said. “I was not going or planning on going [to the White House] anyway. … It's important for me to align myself with those people who have the same ideals that I have.”
In January, Rippon, the first openly gay American to medal at the Winter Olympics in South Korea, told the BBC that he would not feel welcome at the White House.
“I won't go to the White House. And I won't go because I don't think somebody like me would be welcome there,” Rippon said. “I know what it's like to go into a room and feel like you're not wanted there.”
Kenworthy, who came out gay after taking home a silver medal in the 2014 Sochi Games, told TIME in December that he would refuse an invitation to the White House. “I have no interest in faking support,” he said at the time.
He also criticized Trump for his attempt to bar transgender people from serving in the military.
“That is just a direct attack on the LGBT community,” he said. “It shows more courage to leave the house as a trans person than Trump has ever had to show.”