Lead pic: gold medal winning para rower Lauren Rowles.
LGBTQ+ athletes won a total of 28 medals at this year’s Paralympics in Paris, scoring the most medals ever and three more than at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021.
Team LGBTQ+ finished in 17th place in total medals and 11th place, beating Germany and Canada, when counting gold medals first, then silver, then bronze.
American para swimmer Christie Raleigh Crossley led the out LGBTQ athletes with four medals — two golds and two silvers — at the Paris Paralympics. Other British successes came from gold medal winning canoeist Emma Wiggs and gold medal winning para rower Lauren Rowles.
Outsports, which tracks LGBTQ+ sports, said: “Of the 44 publicly out LGBTQ athletes that competed at the Paris Paralympics, 19 won medals – that’s 43.2%, an even higher success rate than the Olympics.
