Gus Kenworthy, an openly gay U.S. Olympic skier, announced on Twitter that he broke his thumb and therefore would be unable to shake Vice President Mike Pence’s hand, although he would still be competing.
“Broke my thumb yesterday in practice,” Kenworthy tweeted Thursday. “It won’t stop me from competing (obvi) but it does prevent me from shaking Pence’s hand so…Silver linings! Will be giving my teammates (and literally everyone else) an enthusiastic ‘thumbs up!’ of encouragement the rest of the trip.”
Broke my thumb yesterday in practice. It won’t stop me from competing (obvi) but it does prevent me from shaking Pence’s hand so… Silver linings! Will be giving my teammates (and literally everyone else) an enthusiastic “thumbs up!” of encouragement the rest of the trip. pic.twitter.com/XylPPGAq9P
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) February 15, 2018
Kenworthy has been critical of Pence and the Trump administration before and claimed Pence was a “bad fit” to lead the Olympic delegation.
“[Pence] seems like such a strange choice,” Kenworthy said on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” earlier this month.
“To have somebody leading the delegation that’s directly attacked the LGBTQ community, and a Cabinet in general that just sort of stands against us and has tried to do things to set us back, it just seems like a bad fit,” he said.
U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon, who is also openly gay and competing at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, has criticized Pence as well.
Rippon said last month he did not agree with the Trump administration’s values and singled out Pence, claiming he “doesn’t really stand for anything I believe in” and claimed that Pence backed “gay conversion therapy.”
Pence’s office has refuted that the vice president supports “gay conversion therapy.”
The 2018 Winter Olympic Games are being held this month in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
