Out bisexual boxer Nicola Adams wins gold, defends title at Rio 2016
Out bisexual boxer Nicola Adams has successfully defended her Olympic title by winning gold at Rio 2016.
The boxer beat Sarah Ourahmoune in the flyweight final on Saturday afternoon.
While this is the second gold won by Adams at the Olympics, previously winning the title at London 2012, she did not commit to future plans.
The 33-year-old hinted at retirement, saying: “this is a tough process”.
Ourahmoune, from France, is retiring at 34.
Of whether being the reigning winner from 2012 made it an easier process up to Rio, she told the Guardian: “Definitely not… I had to qualify like everybody else. It’s tough, because everyone wants to go to the Olympic Games. Every time you beat someone, you’re crushing their dreams. Today, I thought I was winning the rounds quite comfortably and scoring with the cleaner shots.”
Adding: “I’m now the most accomplished British amateur boxer of all time. It’s a nice title to have. To be honest, it feels pretty much the same this time [as in London]. I’ve had a massive amount of support from Yorkshire and the rest of the nation. I feel like I have all their support in the ring with me, every punch I was throwing.”
Of walking into the ring, she says: “I’m always very nervous for every competition I have, and I use that nervous energy when I get into the ring. It gives you an adrenalin rush and it lets you know that you’re taking it seriously and you’re not just going to walk through it.”
Adams became a household name in 2012, after becoming the first British female to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing, and the first LGBT person to win an Olympic boxing gold.
Earlier this month she said: “No one’s ever really cared about me being bisexual and I only came out because I had always been out, it’s just the general public didn’t know. I’m quite fearless. I’m like, ‘Let’s just go out there and do this and see what happens.’ ”
In 2012 she topped the Independent on Sunday Pink List of most influential LGBT figures in Britain.
She told Marie Claire: “I worried about how everyone would react, so I used to say I was single, rather than say I was with a girl. I felt like I was lying all the time. I didn’t like living like that so, in the end, I thought, ‘Well, this is who I am. It’s not as if I can stop it.’”
Earlier today, out gay Olympic diver Tom Daley failed to make the final of the 10m platform dive, after qualifying for the semi-finals with a personal best.
Two runners from New Zealand and America made a lovely gesture to one another at the Rio, helping each other to the finish line after they both fell.
An Italian open water swimming star earlier this week become the first Italian Olympic athlete at the Rio 2016 games to publicly come out as gay with an inspirational message about acceptance.
A record number of out LGBT Olympians took to Rio this year to participate in the games, but none were from Team Italy.
Tom Bosworth – a race walker for Team GB – tweeted a photo of himself proposing to his boyfriend on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro earlier this week.
Bosworth and his boyfriend were the second gay couple to engaged at this year’s games, after a rugby sevens player was proposed to by her girlfriend.
At the weekend, a Brazilian judo champion came out publicly as gay in an interview during the Rio Olympics.
