Costa Rican gymnast Luciana Alvarado concluded her Sunday evening floor routine at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics with one knee on the ground and her fist raised in the air, a move she said was in homage to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The 18-year-old athlete, who made history for her country as the first gymnast from Costa Rica to qualify for the Olympics, scored a 12.166 on the floor exercise and did not qualify to the finals in her event at the Tokyo Olympics.
However, Alvarado’s routine generated headlines with choreography she said was in tribute to the BLM movement that garnered global support after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died last summer in Minneapolis after a police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest.
“My cousin and I, we both do it in our routines,” Alvarado said on the podcast GymCastic during a July 22 interview.
The gymnast said she aims to highlight the values of equal rights to a global audience.
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“And I feel like, if you do something that brings everyone together, you know, and you see that here, like, ‘Yes, you’re one of mine, you understand things,'” Alvarado added.
The International Olympic Committee issued rules to limit protest actions by athletes but signaled a reversal as the Tokyo Games got underway.
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“The IOC is covering the Games on its owned and operated platforms, and such moments will be included as well,” the IOC said about political protests Thursday.
The committee issued its updated stance on player protests after athletes from several teams, including the United States women’s soccer team, knelt or participated in demonstrations on the first day of the monthlong event.
