Gay Olympian inspired by Cher as he looks back on historic medal success
As Sydney reminisces about hosting the Olympics 25 years ago, Ji Wallace is helping today’s gymnasts dream of future glory. The post Gay Olympian inspired by Cher as he looks back on historic medal success appeared first on Outsports.
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It’s been a quarter of a century since Australia hosted one of the greatest editions of the Olympic Games in living memory.
Looking back in the Outsports archive, we wrote about how the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of Sydney 2000 were “amazing” and “awesome.”
We marveled at legends like American sprinter Michael Johnson and rower Sir Steve Redgrave, and we hailed unlikely heroes such as wrestler Rulon Gardner (a shock gold-medal winner).
Having launched the year before, this was Outsports’ first Olympics — but at the time, we knew of only seven publicly out gay and lesbian athletes competing. Compare that to Paris 2024, when “Team LGBTQ” was just shy of 200 in number.
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An Australian athlete in Sydney 25 years ago who later came out publicly as gay is Ji Wallace.
The trampoline gymnast had just turned 23 when he participated in his home Games. He’d previously won World Championship medals, but his discipline had never before been featured at an Olympics.
Wallace was cheered to the rafters by the passionate home fans inside the arena, and he ended up winning a silver medal. It remains Australia’s only Olympic medal in gymnastics to this day.
@olympics Ji Wallace silver medal at Sydney 2000 #Olympics #Trampoline #SportsTok #Athlete ♬ original sound – Olympics
“That moment literally changed my life,” he says in a new interview with QNews.
“I’m still working it from that moment. Who knows what my life would be without it?”
By 2005, Wallace was publicly out as gay, and in the time since, he became a Gay Games ambassador; spoke out about living with HIV; appeared on the cover of Gay Times; and starred in a Cirque du Soleil show.
He now works for Gymnastics Queensland and is helping to mentor young athletes as they chase their Olympic dreams, in particular for Brisbane 2032.
Marking the anniversary of his greatest career moment on Instagram, Wallace also noted how his body has changed over time.
“25 years and 25kgs later, new opportunities abound with no one to stop me,” he wrote in the caption accompanying an image taken in Athens, the birthplace of the Olympics, “not long after” his Sydney 2000 success.
Compared to that fresh-faced blond-haired gymnast of 2000, he’s pretty much unrecognizable now, with his shaved head and full beard.
Still with boundless energy, he cites Cher as one of his great inspirations. “She said it best, she said, ‘I’d rather look back at my life and go, ‘Oh, I probably shouldn’t have done that,’ rather than what most people do, and they go, ‘I wish I had’,” he explained.
Five years ago, Wallace was a guest on Outsports’ “Five Rings to Rule Them All” podcast series.
On that episode, he told Cyd Zeigler how the best part of being an out gay athlete after the Olympics was “just knowing that I’m coming from an authentic place.”
In his interview with QNews, he shares similar advice for the athletes of today who are LGBTQ, letting them know that while representation in elite competition still really matters, it’s also OK to wait, just like he did.
“Come out if you feel comfortable,” he says. “But my decision was, I want to be known as Ji the athlete.
“It depends on what you want. Everybody’s on their own journey, and everybody’s coming from a different place and with different experiences.
“It’s great to see yourself in somebody else who’s being successful, but that was never my inspiration.”
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The post Gay Olympian inspired by Cher as he looks back on historic medal success appeared first on Outsports.
