Google - AFP, 18 December 2013
Tennis
legend Billie Jean King talks to the crowd on August 28, 2006 during the
2006
US Open Tennis Championships in Flushing Meadows, New York (AFP/File,
Don
Emmert)
|
Washington
— President Barack Obama Tuesday named openly gay tennis legend Billie Jean
King on the US delegation to the Winter Olympics in Sochi amid a storm over a
Russian law targeting homosexuals.
The
comparatively low key US delegation to the Games, which begin on February 7,
lacks a serving US cabinet member and was unveiled at a time of US tensions
with Russia over gay rights and Moscow's decision to offer refuge to fugitive
American intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
By
contrast, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill lead the US delegation to
the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.
The lower
powered US group at the Sochi opening ceremonies will be led by former homeland
security secretary Janet Napolitano and includes King, retired figure skater
Brian Boitano, US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and White House deputy
chief of staff Rob Nabors.
The United
States will be represented at the closing ceremony by Deputy Secretary of State
William Burns, McFaul, speed skating legends Bonnie Blair and Eric Heiden and
women's hockey player Caitlin Cahow.
Russia's
adoption in June of a disputed law prohibiting the dissemination of information
about homosexuality to minors has sparked protests from international human
rights groups and calls for a boycott of the country's first post-Soviet Games.
Obama said
in August that he had did not agree with the idea of an Olympic boycott but was
"really looking forward" to US gay or lesbian athletes bringing home
medals, which he said would "go a long way in rejecting the kind of
attitudes that we're seeing there."
"If
Russia doesn't have gay or lesbian athletes, then, it'll probably make their
team weaker," he said.
Putin said
in October that Russia would go out of its way to ensure that athletes and fans
at the Olympics will feel at ease "regardless of their ethnicity, race or
sexual orientation."
King won
six Wimbledon singles titles and four US Opens, plus a flurry of doubles
crowns, and was outed in a lawsuit after having an affair with another women
and said she did not feel comfortable being openly gay until later in life.
Her
selection will be hailed in some quarters as a message directly from Obama to
Putin. USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan hailed the president's
decision as a "stroke of genius."
"Think
of the millions of Russian citizens who are gay, or have a gay family member or
friend, living in a nation where discrimination based on sexual orientation is
not only tolerated, but promoted," Brennan wrote.
"And
the US president sends one of the world's most recognizable faces of equality and
inclusion to attend the Opening Ceremony in such a visible role?"Google
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