Introducing You to Our Coverage of Team Rainbow at the Winter Olympics

Wide Left will be providing coverage of the Winter Olympics! Ethan Hammerman provides a venue to keep up with the storylines surrounding the queer athletes competing in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo

Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images

The Olympics are special to me. One of my first memories was Kerri Strug’s vault in 1996, sticking her landing despite a sprained ankle. I remember screaming in my basement, watching Jason Lezak chase down Alain Bernard in the 4x100 medley relay. I cried when Nathan Chen broke through in 2022 and won figure skating gold. I even got the opportunity to attend the 2024 Paris Olympics in person. The Olympics inspire me to work harder, push myself to my limits, and have informed my professional and personal goals throughout my career and life.

It’s hard to talk about the Olympics right now without recognizing the role they play in deflecting and redirecting the very real violence being imposed by my home country’s government on its own citizenry. There are meaningful discussions to be had about boycotting the 2028 Olympics, especially given Los Angeles’ status as host city. For 2026, however, I’m happy to posit another option for those who still have an interest in the Olympics but would rather not root just for the red, white, and blue.

Let’s cheer for rainbows instead.

One reason the Olympics stand out to me as unique in the world of sports is because of the wide breadth of LGBTQ+ athletes who star for their countries. There are zero out athletes in any of the four main men’s sports; at least 196 confirmed LGBTQ+ athletes competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Even in times where such overt nationalism can feel odd, this has served as a way for me to identify competitors I can relate to and cheer them on. Prior to the 2021 Tokyo Games, I had an idea: why not keep track of them all and see how many medals they can attain? What if queer athletes at the Olympics formed their own country?

I give you: Team Rainbow - which I’m proud to present exclusively on Wide Left for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games!

Team Rainbow: An Introduction and Statistics

I have been tracking Team Rainbow for the past three Olympic games, and in each one, LGBTQ+ athletes have crushed the medal count, earning as many golds, silvers, and bronzes as most of the mainstay countries — even though definitively it seems that Team Rainbow is a summery country rather than a winterish one.

Before diving more in-depth, there are three main nuances that I use when tracking these athletes and medal counts:

• Only openly out athletes are counted within the medal count — I do not use this exercise to speculate on the sexuality of any athletes - only verifiable members of the community are included.

• The list is evolving — I try to verify every athlete on it using news sources and their personal social media pages to ensure I’m not missing anyone. If I miss one, or one comes out during the games (which has happened before!), they can be added later, and that is totally fine.

• For team sports, teams with even a single LGBTQ+ member count as medals for the whole group — This also means that for a sport like hockey, Team Rainbow can technically sweep the medals, earning a gold, silver, AND bronze in the same sport.

Beijing 2022 — The Starting Point

In 2022, Team Rainbow earned 9 medals at the Winter Olympics, which would have put it at 14th internationally, tied with South Korea.

Additionally, 14 of the 35 confirmed athletes won medals thanks to a sweep in Women’s Hockey. Canada led the way with 7 athletes on their gold medal squad, while Team USA and Finland also had representation in silver and bronze efforts.

The additional medalists earned their titles through alpine skiing, curling, and long-track speed skating. Swede Sandra Näslund won gold in women’s ski cross, while Dutch speed skater Ireen Wust and American Brittany Bowe earned gold and bronze in their Women’s 1000m and Team Pursuit races. Finally, Brit Bruce Mouat is THE top male curler in the entire United Kingdom, and his patient captaincy piloted the Britons to a silver medal in the Men’s competition.

Wüst, a five-time gold medalist, is now retired, but these other athletes are coming back and ready to defend or exceed their previous performances. Plus, more queer athletes are on the horizon, ready to prove themselves and showcase their skills, allowing us all to appreciate them and embrace how great they are as role models.

What’s Next

Over the coming days, we will introduce you to a number of LGBTQ+ athletes most likely to earn medals in Milan-Cortina and let you know when you can watch them compete. Peacock changed the game with their coverage of Paris 2024 via Gold Zone and coverage of every single event, and they’re bringing it back in February. There is a great mix of returning competitors and new talent, many of whom will see their stars rise over the course of those fated two weeks in February.

I’ll be providing twice-weekly updates of how Team Rainbow is performing throughout the games, noting major medal opportunities and where viewers can watch them. Additionally, I’ll be cheering and liveposting every event from my Bluesky account — feel free to join in and follow along.

Finally, any compensation for these pieces will be donated directly to Minnesota Direct Relief, supporting the Minneapolis community as they are brutalized by ICE. We had originally planned to donate any proceeds to The Trevor Project, a charity close to my heart that supports queer children, but given current events and Wide Left’s proximity to Minneapolis, this felt like an obvious pivot.

It goes without saying that I personally stand with the community as they are attacked by their own government, and Minneapolis-St. Paul is one of my favorite metro areas in the world. I visited this summer (when this idea was conceived), and I intend to return soon.

I’m incredibly grateful to Arif for the opportunity and for uplifting this incredible cause, while also providing broader visibility to queer excellence in athletics and, hopefully, giving viewers an alternative way to follow the Winter Olympics.