Tom Daley and four other LGBTQ team athletes will be prominently featured as flag bearers in the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The Olympics’ highlight, the Opening Ceremony on Friday, will see 204 countries represented, including the Refugee Olympic Team, which, like Daly, will serve as its flag-bearer and is an openly LGBTQ athlete.
Sindy Ngamba, who will compete in the women’s 75kg boxing competition, was born in Cameroon but will represent the Refugee Olympic Team in Paris.
Other openly LGBTQ flag-bearers include boxer Nesty Petecio (Philippines), who performed the same role at the Tokyo Closing Ceremony, sprinter Michelle-Lee Ahe (Trinidad and Tobago), and reigning Olympic triple jump champion Yulimar Rojas (Venezuela), who will not compete at Paris 2024 due to injury.
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Daly said being given the role with the Great Britain national team was “one of the greatest honours” of his career.
The 30-year-old diving gold medallist from Tokyo was selected on the eve of her fifth Olympic Games, along with rower Helen Glover.
The announcement was made by Team GB President Mark England at a team reception at the British Embassy in Paris on Wednesday evening.
Daly and Glover will join other British athletes in a convoy that will travel down the Seine from Pont d’Austerlitz to Pont d’Iena, with around 300,000 spectators expected to line the route.
Athletes and officials will then parade to the 30,000-seat mini-stadium at Trocadero Park.
Ngamba and the Refugee Olympic Team will be the second team in the parade, after Greece. Daly and Glover of Great Britain are 72nd, Petecio of the Philippines is 148th, Aje of Trinidad and Tobago is 186th and Venezuela and Rojas are 196th. Host nation France will be the 205th and final team to parade.
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Daly said the assignment fulfills one of her childhood dreams and that having her family — her husband, Dustin Lance Black, and her two sons, Robby and Phoenix — watching the game is “very special.”
According to the British team, Daly will be the first diver to carry the British flag at an Olympic ceremony and the first swimmer to do so since swimmer Mark Foster.
Foster, like Daly, is openly gay and retired from competitive swimming after serving as the flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He came out publicly in 2017.
As of Friday, the number of openly LGBTQ Olympic flag bearers at the Summer Olympics will rise to 21. According to research by historian Tony Scupham Bilton, the following people are recorded as flag bearers who carried the flag at the opening or closing ceremonies:
Raelene Boyle, Australia, Athletics – 1976, Opening Sue Bird, USA, Basketball – 2020, Opening Cecilia Carranza Saroli, Argentina, Sailing – 2020, Opening Malta and Brazil, Football – 2016, Opening Andri Eleftheriou, Cyprus, Skit – 2020, Opening Amini Fonua, Tonga, Swimming – 2012, Opening Mark Foster, Great Britain, Swimming – 2008, Opening Gro Hammerseng, Norway, Handball – 2008, Opening Kelly Harrington, Ireland, Boxing – 2020, Opening Caitlyn Jenner, USA, Athletics – 1984, Opening Ari-Pekka Lyukkonen, Finland, Swimming – 2020, Opening Francine Niyonsaba, Burundi, Athletics –2016, Opening 2020, Closed Nesty Petecio, Philippines, Boxing – 2020, Closed, 2024, Opening Kate Richardson-Walsh, Great Britain, Hockey – 2016, Closed Yulimar Rojas, Venezuela, Athletics – 2024, Opening* Casta Semenya, South Africa, Athletics – 2012, Opening, 2016, Closed Bryce Tait, New Zealand, Equestrian – 2000, Opening Ian Thorpe, Australia, Swimming – 2000, Closed
* Yulimar Rojas was due to be the flag bearer at the opening ceremony of Tokyo 2020 but missed his flight. He will not compete at Paris 2024 due to injury but was named one of his country’s flag bearers on Friday.
Meanwhile, Daly also spoke about the “great responsibility” he feels as a prominent, openly LGBTQ athlete.
In an episode of the BBC’s “All About Olympics” series in the run up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, Daly spoke to one of his former idols, diver and coach Leon Taylor, who he watched on television as he won silver in the 10-metre synchro at the 2004 Athens Games.
When asked how using his voice has changed him as a person during his diving career, Daly responded, “I think a lot of athletes or people who are successful in a certain field have a responsibility to set an example of what the world should be like in terms of their values and their way of thinking.”
“When I came out, there was also an expectation that I would be someone who spoke out for minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. I think that comes with a lot of pressure and anxiety about saying the right thing.”
“I had to do some very rigorous studying on LGBT history because I didn’t know anything about my ancestors who gave us the rights we enjoy today.”
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Her meeting with Black, an Oscar-winning writer and director who has been a central figure in LGBTQ activism, sparked not just a romance but also advocacy.
But there are still relatively few openly gay or bisexual male athletes, let alone Olympians, and even fewer who are outspoken advocates for LGBTQ rights like Daly.
He continues in the episode, “I think one of the biggest reasons why a lot of athletes choose not to come out is because they feel a responsibility to be a role model for a lot of queer young people.”
“It’s a lot of pressure, but at the same time, if you believe in something and you’re passionate about it, you don’t have to think too hard.”
