So, the Olympics are over, but the drama continues and this time it involves the Olympic Sweetheart Tom Daley. While we were going all heart eye emoji over Tom Daley, Britain’s Olympic Diving Gold-Medalist, some people weren’t feeling the same way. 

Russia’s state-run Tokyo Olympics TV Channel Rossiya 1 fired a series of homophobic comments directed at the LGBTQ+ Olympians mainly Tom Daley and Laurel Hubbard during their coverage of the delayed Games. 

The channel not only used several talk shows to speak offensively about the LGBTQ+ athletes but also aired a show where the TV host Anatoly Kuzichev wore a wig to mock transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard. They used word like abomination and perversion against the LGBTQ+ Olympians and called trans people psychopaths who needed psychiatric treatment. 

Tom Daley responded saying that as he was at the Olympics, he didn’t see any of the news reports about it. According to The Sun, he also said that "If we could come together and use different points of view, the world would be a better place.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is taking the matter seriously and has contacted the Russian broadcaster to express their concerns. 

While some countries have grown to accept the LGBTQ+ communities, Russia is not one of them. Since Vladimir Putin’s presidential rule in 2021, the attacks against the LGBTQ+ community has skyrocketed. 

Same-sex marriages are still illegal in the country and Putin has declared that it was his duty to prevent them to reinforce families.