French athlete Dimitri PavadĂ©, who represented his home country at this yearâs Paralympics in Paris, has come out as gay just days following his fourth-place finish in the menâs long jump.
PavadĂ©, who won a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games, returned to the menâs long jump T64 classification final, where he was just .06 metres short of winning a bronze medal.
On Saturday, September 7 he took to Instagram and shared a photo of himself smiling while holding rainbow-coloured interlocking male gender symbols in a nod to announcing his coming out in the postâs caption.
âAnother fight awaits me now, and I was impatiently waiting for this moment. Here I am today, ready once again to face, overcome and move forward without taking into account what others may say or think of me,â wrote PavadĂ©.
He continued, âYes, I am SMALL, MIXED-RACE, ONE-LEGGED, and to add another layer, GAY!!!!!! The person I am, and like others, have never had to make a choice, so stop with your pitiful speeches and your judgments without reasoning because you will never change the world.â
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Elsewhere in his Instagram announcement, PavadĂ© said he wants to âbe the icon of people with disabilitiesâ and be a leader in the LGBTQ+ community.
He also shared that he hopes to give âstrength and courageâ to those who have yet to go public with their identity, along with athletes who donât live âopenly and freely.â
âDisability is not meant to be hidden or ashamed of, the same goes for your sexual orientation,â PavadĂ© wrote.
âSo embrace yourself as you are and remember that you are not alone, life is extremely short and so many beautiful things are offered to us that we cannot deprive ourselves of them.â
Pavadé is one of five male athletes at the Paris Paralympics who are out, according to Outsports.
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