Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight  is sometimes called "Australia's most vocal athlete about Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws in the lead up to the Winter Olympics." A world class athlete and Olympic snowboarder today's Out Spotlight is Belle Brockoff.

Belle Brockoff is was born January 12, 1993 in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Here father is a champion glider, Bruce Brockoff, three times Australian National Champion in 15 m racing class sailplanes. And in Australian Brockoff is a household name not for sports but for biscuits (aka cookies for Americans).

Coming from a family of champions  let alone a famous family is and interesting human interest story for the Olympics it's not the only thing that is memorable about Brockoff.  She is competing as an openly gay athlete in the Sochi games.  While she recognizes that both are important parts of her life that intersect in many ways, she doesn't let one define the other. Yes, she's a gay athlete, but she's also just an athlete — a world-class one — and wants to be respected as such.

Although she's been out for a few years to her friends and mother, Brockhoff used the announcement of Russia's anti-gay laws as an opportunity to publicly come out as gay. In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Brockhoff came out nationally to take a stand for gay and lesbian athletes.

"I honestly find it a little bit disrespectful and a little bit sad, not only to me, but to other athletes and, you know, it's my dream and I want to be able to be who I am, be proud of who I am and be proud of all the work that has gotten me to the Olympics and not have to deal with this kind of a law."

She is very involved in  Principle 6, a campaign formed by two non-profits, Athlete Ally and All Out, which is named after the clause in the Olympic charter that guarantees non-discrimination and works to support LGBT athletes and show how Russia's anti-LGBT discrimination is incompatible with the Olympic movement.

 Even though Brockhoff is an active advocate for gay rights, she knows that she wouldn't be at the Olympics without her hard work as a snowboarder and is putting that first at the Winter Games in Sochi.

As a small protest at the games, Brockhoff said she plans to "hold up six fingers to represent Principle Six. Possibly I'll do it on camera here or there, and maybe after the heats of my event."

"During the whole Games, I won't be getting into anything political, it's not why I'm there," Brockhoff told BBC.

" I won't be doing anything crazy towards these gay laws, I’ll just be doing my job as an athlete and athlete only. Not until after my competition. This has been my focus for 10 years and I’m not going to change that for a law.”

 But afterwards she will be sending a message:  "After I compete, I'm willing to rip on his ass," Brockhoff told Yahoo Sports, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "It's the perfect opportunity to send a message [...] I'm not happy and there's a bunch of other Olympians who are not happy either."

 She's competing in the snowboard-cross on February 16th .

 Brockoff's very active on Facebook and Twitter, and using social media to share the messages of the multiple campaigns she belongs to as an advocate for gay rights.

Video of her road to Sochi


 Along with Brokhoff, a number of other out gay women are participating in the 2014 Sochi games: Barbara Jezeršek of Slovenia for cross country skiing, Cheryl Maas of the Netherlands for snowboarding, Anastasia Bucsis of Canada for speed skating, Irene Wüst of the Netherlands for speed skating, Sanne Van Kerkhof of the Netherlands for speed skating and Daniela Iraschko-Stolz of Austria for ski jumping. But these are just the ones who are comfortable enough coming out publicly.

Hopefully, the actions of these out proud Olympians will make it easier for other athletes to come out publicly in the future.


  Olympics for ALL Moment:

It's not just the athletes speaking out about the LGBT rights and Russia, sponsors are too.  Chobani Yogurt a sponsor of Team USA has shown their support in their latest ads .