Adam Rippon is an American figure skater who has made a name for himself after winning one championship after another during his time in competitive figure skating.
Adam Richard Rippon was born on November 11, 1989 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he is the first of six children. At the age of 10, he started to skate after his mother, who skated, brought him along to the rink.
Thereafter, Rippon was coached by Yelena Sergeeva from 2000 to 2007, and won the silver medal in the Novice level at the 2005 U.S. Championships. Fast forward to 2010, he won the Four Continents Championships, as well as the U.S. National Championships in 2016, among other victories.
Not to mention, he was also chosen to represent the U.S. at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea where he won a bronze medal as a part of the figure skating team event. Later on in the year, Rippon retired from competitive figure skating.
Aside from figure skating, he has also appeared in reality television shows, including ‘Dancing with the Stars’ Season 26 where he reigned as the winner. More recently, Rippon was also one of the famous personalities in ‘Stars on Mars’ Season 1, which he also ended up winning.
In one of the episodes of the show, cyclist Lance Armstrong shared his opinions on trans athletes, which were downright transphobic. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rippon revealed that Armstrong’s statement was lengthier and more transphobic than what was aired on television.
“I wanted to be a representation of the LGBTQ+ community and that was a moment where I wanted to say something, but I don’t know everything about being a trans person.
I do know that a lot of the things that were said that were not on the show were very transphobic and I’m glad that trans people didn’t need to watch what was said. It was not nice and it was not good in any sort of way,” he expressed.
Related: Adam Rippon on Lance Armstrong’s Transphobic Comments
Moreover, the 33-year-old Olympic figure skater publicly came out as gay on October 2, 2015. Rippon was also hailed as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2018 by Time magazine.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org, ew.com
Just a few years ago he was the first openly gay man to quality for the Winter Olympics, not sure if it was for just that year or for all time though.