Neither President Barack Obama nor Vice President Joe Biden, nor their wives, will attend the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The U.S. leaders are joining what is quickly becoming an elite group of non-attendees refusing to go to the games, presumably over Russia’s anti-gay laws that are making life increasingly dangerous for LGBT Russians.
Is it a boycott by Western political leaders? Call it what you will.
Also snubbing the Russian Olympic Games are German President Joachim Gauck, the European Union’s commissioner for Justice, Citizenship and Fundamental Rights Viviane Reding, and French President François Hollande.
Chris Geidner, who broke the story at Buzzfeed, notes that the U.S. “delegation announcement was significantly more delayed than had been the case in 2012, when the White House announced First Lady Michelle Obama’s role leading the U.S. delegation to the Summer Olympics in London more than four months before the start of those games.”
Buzzfeed notes that the U.S. will send a delegation, but it will be led by Janet Napolitano, who resigned as the U.S. Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security several months ago. Geidner reports, “no current cabinet members will be a part of the country’s delegation either.”
The Presidential Delegation to the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games will include Napolitano; Nabors; Michael A. McFaul, the United States ambassador to the Russian Federation; Billie Jean King, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, member of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, as well as a former Olympic tennis coach; and Brian A. Boitano, an Olympic gold medalist in figure skating. The Presidential Delegation to the Closing Ceremony of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games on February 23, 2014, led by Burns, will also include McFaul; Bonnie Blair, five-time Olympic gold medalist and one-time bronze medalist in speed skating; Caitlin Cahow, Olympic silver medalist and bronze medalist in women’s ice hockey; and Eric Heiden, five-time Olympic gold medalist in speed skating. Both King and Cahow are out members of the LGBT community.
Image via Facebook