Olympian Skier’s Bizarre Rant ‘Gay Men are Cowards, So There Are No Gay Male Pro-Skiers’

Italian professional skier Sofia Goggia has won an Olympic gold medal, one silver and three World Cup downhill titles. She also had some odd and homophobic opinions when asked if there were gay skiers on the pro skiing circuit.

Ski Racer:

“Among women, yes. Not for men, I would say. You have to throw yourself down the Streif in Kitzbuhel”

The Streif, in Austria, is considered “one of the most challenging downhill slopes in the world.” Which means, according to Goggia, there can’t be gay male pro skiers, because a gay man by his very nature is too much of a coward to throw himself down that course.

The following day Goggia issued a classic non-apology apology, tweeting:

A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest. I’m sorry and I apologize to all the people who felt offended by the sentence that came out in the Corriere interview which, certainly, when I said it, did not want to be discriminatory in nature.

Fa più rumore un albero che cade che una foresta che cresce.
Mi dispiace e mi scuso con tutte le persone che si sono sentite offese per la frase che è uscita nell’intervista del Corriere che, sicuramente, quando l’ho pronunciata, non voleva essere di natura discriminatoria. 🌈

— iamsofiagoggia (@goggiasofia) April 17, 2022

The Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior, Ivan Scalfarotto, also had an opinion. He wrote:

I read with dismay that according to Sofia Goggia a gay athlete would not be able to do a downhill. Before saying such things, kind Sofia, you should stop and think twice: speed is an advantage in the race but with words it can become a big problem.