Help send openly gay speed skater Blake Skjellerup to the Winter Olympics
Wed. August 28, 2013 11:54 AM by GoPride.com News Staff
blake skjellerup
photo credit // facebook
Outsports, GLAAD, the StandUp Foundation and a number of other organizations are lining up behind a new fundraising campaign to send Blake Skjellerup to the Olympic qualifiers and on to Sochi.
The 28-year-old gay speed skater from New Zealand needs to raise at least $15,000 to help him qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The money raised will help pay travel expenses for Skjellerup to compete in Olympic qualification events in China, South Korea, Italy and Russia in the coming months.
If Skjellerup qualifies for Sochi, he would become the first publicly out male athlete to compete in a Winter Olympics, according to Outsports.com. Skjellerup skated in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver before he came out.
"Being in the closet was not a very fun time for me. So, there is no way that I am going back in [the closet,] especially for something that I've worked my entire life for, which is the Olympic Games; that's what is most important to me. I'm not going to change who I am because one country sees that who I am is wrong," Skjellerup told Windy City Times in July.
Skjellerup told the Times he will, without question, wear a pride pin, which was created during the 2012 London Summer Olympics, somewhere on his uniform in Sochi.
Outsports.com said Skjellerup would be a proud symbol for the LGBT community as he competes on the Sochi ice.
The fundraising campaign aims to raise at least $15,000 with an ultimate goal of the full $33,000 that Skjellerup needs to compete at his highest level in the World Cups and the Winter Olympics.
Related: Blake Skjellerup fundraising campaign on indiegogo
Related: Olympic speed skater won't hide in the closet in Russia
The 28-year-old gay speed skater from New Zealand needs to raise at least $15,000 to help him qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The money raised will help pay travel expenses for Skjellerup to compete in Olympic qualification events in China, South Korea, Italy and Russia in the coming months.
If Skjellerup qualifies for Sochi, he would become the first publicly out male athlete to compete in a Winter Olympics, according to Outsports.com. Skjellerup skated in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver before he came out.
"Being in the closet was not a very fun time for me. So, there is no way that I am going back in [the closet,] especially for something that I've worked my entire life for, which is the Olympic Games; that's what is most important to me. I'm not going to change who I am because one country sees that who I am is wrong," Skjellerup told Windy City Times in July.
Skjellerup told the Times he will, without question, wear a pride pin, which was created during the 2012 London Summer Olympics, somewhere on his uniform in Sochi.
Outsports.com said Skjellerup would be a proud symbol for the LGBT community as he competes on the Sochi ice.
The fundraising campaign aims to raise at least $15,000 with an ultimate goal of the full $33,000 that Skjellerup needs to compete at his highest level in the World Cups and the Winter Olympics.
Related: Blake Skjellerup fundraising campaign on indiegogo
Related: Olympic speed skater won't hide in the closet in Russia