Two J.C McGuigan C.S.S Students on Canadian Winter Olympic Team, Beijing, China.

2022 Beijing Winter Olympics - Eric Radford (by: John Collado, JCM) 

TORONTO, ON-- As society has become more inclusive to minority groups -- as they should, more athletes that are openly part of the LGBTQ+ community have been bringing representation to the long oppressed collective. In this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, open LGBT athletes came from countries in Europe, from Brazil, the USA, and of course, Canada. Canada has been known to be a very friendly country towards the queer community for a long time now. One of the athletes that participated in this year’s winter Olympics was three-time medalist Eric Radford. Born in Winnipeg on January 27th, 1985 and raised in Balmer town -- a small Ontario town near Winnipeg, he would go on to compete in the Sochi, PyeongChang, and Beijing Olympics and bring home medals (first openly-gay gold medalist) from two of those competitions. He fell in love with skating as a child while watching Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko. From that spark, he began skating at age 8, and moved out from age 14, to Kenora, Winnipeg and Montreal to pursue his skating career. He also studied music at York University here in Toronto. In 2019, he married his fiancée, Spanish ice dancer Luis Fenero. Eric is also now an ambassador for the Canadian Olympic Committee's #OneTeam program, which was created to combat homophobia in sports. This certainly is a testament to the courage and bravery that people of the queer community have showcased in the fight for equality and equity.

Team Canada Olympian - Cynthia Appiah (by: Oyinye Okorafor, JCM) 

Cynthia Appiah was born to a family of Ghanaian immigrants on May 15, 1990 in North York Ontario Canada. She was brought up in the Toronto community housing at Izzy St. Andrews by both parents and three siblings, where her parents still reside. Appiah discovered her love of sports with the help of Jays Care Foundation’s Rookie League program. She attended Don Bosco Catholic high school in Rexdale before going on to pursue a post secondary education at York University where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in history with a minor in psychology. From 2008 to 2013, she was a top performer on the track and field team at York University. She was recruited to be a part of Canada’s bobsleigh team by Morgan Alexander although she had no experience in the sport. She trained to be a part of the 2018 Winter Olympic games. Unfortunately she would go on to be an alternate at the winter games. Due to the changes she was upset and channeled her anger towards becoming a role model while breaking the stereotypes that black people cannot pilot. Through her perseverance and resilience she was able to compete in the 2022 winter games and looks forward to participating in the next winter games. 

Resources 

https://www.complex.com/sports/cynthia-appiah-canadian-bobsledder-interview https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/cynthia-appiah-boblseigh-1.5799070