Australia’s only openly gay athlete on the 56-strong team competing at the Winter Olympics in Sochi has promised to “rip on Putin’s ass”.
Belle Brockhoff, the 21-year-old snowboard cross rider, sounds like an absolute badass. Though, you kinda have to be, if you’re willing to say something like that about Vladimir Putin. This is a man who not only rules his country with an iron fist, but also rides horses around the wilderness with his shirt off. Why? To wrestle bears ‘n’ shit.
Brockhoff is planning to make her views known before she competes in the snowboard cross event on Sunday, February 16th. While she won’t be waving a rainbow flag around, she will “hold up six fingers to represent Principle Six. Possibly I’ll do it on camera here or there, and maybe after the heats of my event”.
Principle Six is one of the seven Fundamental Principles on the Olympic Charter. It states that “any form of discrimination with regard to a country or person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement”.
So, in other words, she’ll be giving the six finger salute to a man who manipulates his government policy to discriminate against people based on their sexual-orientation.
Brockhoff is one of Australia’s medal hopefuls, and is the only Australian woman to win a Snowboard Cross World Cup medal when she placed third in Montafon, Austria. Here’s to hoping she gets on the podium again and can give Putin the salute from there.
Photo: Ryan Pierse via Getty
Via News.com.au
