PORTLAND, Maine — Two-time Olympic gold-medal winner Seth Wescott says the Winter Olympics in Russia could be tarnished because of Russian legislation that bans gay “propaganda.”
Wescott told The Associated Press on Wednesday that there’s potential for February’s games in Sochi to be a “negatively-overshadowed Olympics” because of Russia’s law prohibiting promotion of “nontraditional” sexual relations.
USA gold medalist Seth Wescott shows off his medal at the men’s snowboard cross medal ceremony at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Feb. 16, 2010.
Activists have denounced the law and called for a boycott of the games.
“The human rights stuff that’s going on, there’s a potential for it to be an incredibly negatively-overshadowed Olympics,” he told The Associated Press.
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Wescott, who lives in western Maine, won gold medals in snowboard cross in the 2006 and 2010 Olympics and hopes to qualify for Sochi.
Wescott, 37, said he has sufficiently recovered since undergoing knee surgery in April to attempt to qualify for the upcoming Olympics during races in Decemb er and January.
In an interview, Wescott and Alex Tuttle, another Olympic snowboard cross hopeful from Carrabassett Valley, said Sochi didn’t appear to be prepared for the Olympics when they visited there last February, and that they’re concerned there will be a lack of snow for snowboard events.
The buildup to the Feb. 7-23 games has also been overshadowed by the Western backlash to the gay-rights law, which has been denounced by activists and President Barack Obama.
The IOC has said athletes can express themselves before the Olympics and outside the games’ venues, but that it doesn’t want the games themselves used as a platform for demonstrations.
Wescott said he has female friends in snowboarding who are lesbians.
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The IOC and the Sochi Olympics media office didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
The head of the Sochi Olympics asked the IOC on Sunday to help “stop this campaign and this speculation” related to the anti-gay law.
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