Gay athlete Alec Smith reveals ‘No. 1’ priority with fiance — and it’s not marriage
Speaking to the "Out of Bounds" podcast, former CrossFit athlete Alec Smith talks about his future plans with Riley Hedstrom. The post Gay athlete Alec Smith reveals ‘No. 1’ priority with fiance — and it’s not marriage appeared first on Outsports.
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It’s six years since Alec Smith shared an emotional video with more than 300,000 Instagram followers, telling all of them — as well as his CrossFit community at large — that he’s gay.
His courage in coming out was inspirational to many other guys who could relate to his journey of denial, fear and finally, self-acceptance.
In 2018, Smith was competing at the highest level in CrossFit, a discipline that offered little to no gay or bi representation of men at that time.
More recently, he has been forced to step away from competing, due to arthritis in his hip.
Yet he’s also found happiness and love with fellow fitness enthusiast Riley Hedstrom — the couple have been engaged for three years.
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A wedding day is not imminent, though.
Smith is the guest on the fourth episode of “Out of Bounds”, the new podcast series from HYROX athlete Jake Williamson and Pridefit app founder Sam Leicht.
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While the 32-year-old says he is looking forward to tying the knot with Hedstrom, their priority is to start a family.
“We actually started the process in 2022 — we had seven failed embryo transfers and then ran out of embryos,” explained Smith.
The disappointment, combined with the expense, has left them with a dilemma.
“We’re still recovering from that and trying to figure out what our next steps are,” he adds.
“Weddings are not cheap… and I think that No. 1 for us is starting a family and then eventually having some type of celebration or ceremony or something.
“So, I think our order is a little bit different than traditional people’s orders are.”
Smith is from Chesapeake, Va., while Hedstrom hails from Minnesota and has a “huge extended family,” which also brings a level of expectation that they’re budgeting for.
“They have yearly Christmas Eve parties that like are well over 100 people… I’m still learning names after five years of going!” says Smith.
He describes Hedstrom’s family as “super sweet… they’re all so loving and great. So that’s kind of what’s stopping us, the money side of it.”
Alec Smith recalls Gus Kenworthy’s gay kiss at the Olympics
On the podcast, Smith also discusses the reactions to his coming out video in 2019, which he says followed a period in which he received many DMs and messages from people asking about his sexuality.
He found the pressure “suffocating” and made the decision to take ownership of his narrative. While it was liberating, there were also some negative responses.
“The community was the biggest part… there were so many DMs and comments that just brought tears to my eyes and made me so happy that I had shared that video and shared that part of my life with them. It was great.
“Obviously there were negative sides, but I try not to focus on those because the positives are so much better. There were a lot of close friends of mine that I competed with that unfollowed me at the time.”
Asked by the hosts if there were any out gay athletes who he looked up to, he mentions Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy who had competed at the Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, the previous year.
“The first one that pops in my head is Gus kissing his boyfriend at the time on the Olympic stage.
“That was so cool to see because it was the first time an Olympian had done that publicly.”
Listen to the conversation in full on the “Out of Bounds” podcast.
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The post Gay athlete Alec Smith reveals ‘No. 1’ priority with fiance — and it’s not marriage appeared first on Outsports.
