Strong LGBTQ representation at Paris Olympics

At least 191 LGBTQ athletes are competing at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, which already beats the 186 out athletes at the most recent Summer Olympics in Tokyo, according to Outsports.

This year’s slate of LGBTQ athletes hail from more than two dozen nations across the world, though the United States has the most of all. The US has 31 out Olympic athletes, followed by Brazil’s 30 out athletes. Australia has 22 LGBTQ Olympic athletes, while Germany has 13, Spain has 12, Great Britain and Canada have 11, the Netherlands has 10, and France has nine.

Women significantly outnumber men among out Olympic athletes, but there are also non-binary athletes, including Quinn, a soccer player from Canada, and Nikki Hiltz, a track and field athlete from the US.

LGBTQ representation is not as strong among countries in Africa and Asia. There are just three out athletes from Asia (the Philippines and Thailand) and four from Africa (South Africa and Cameroon). However, the Cameroonian athlete, boxer Cindy Ngamba, lives in Great Britain. 

Outsports has long led a running tally of LGBTQ athletes at Olympic events — and it is often conducted through a piecemeal approach in which athletes are gradually added to “Team LGBTQ” with the help of submissions from readers and others.

The amount of LGBTQ athletes has grown with every Olympic cycle. According to Outsports, there were 23 out athletes at London’s 2012 Summer Olympics and 53 at Rio’s 2016 Summer Olympics before ballooning to nearly 200 in Tokyo, Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which took place in 2021 due to the COVID pandemic.  There were 15 out athletes at the 2018 Winter Olympics. in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and 35 out athletes at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, according to Outsports.

LGBTQ athletes have already started collecting medals during the early days of the Olympics. French judoka Amandine Buchard became the first out LGBTQ Olympic athlete to win a medal at this year’s Olympics when she defeated Reka Pupp of Hungary to win a bronze medal. Lauren Scruggs, an out lesbian foil fencer from Queens, New York, won a silver medal, becoming the first Black American woman ever to win an individual fencing medal, according to the Washington Post. 

“From a young age, I really had to prove myself to get respect,” Scruggs said, according to the Washington Post. “It’s the little things. Maybe no one’s cheering for you, things like that.”