The Olympics and politics are more intertwined than ever before. Maybe that’s a good thing

In 2018, snowboarder Adam Rippon objected to then-Vice President Mike Pence leading the US delegation to the Olympics in Pyeongchang, citing Pence’s record on LGBTQ+ rights. At the time, Rippon, who came out as gay in 2015, said Pence “doesn’t stand for anything I truly believe in.”

Eight years later, Rippon says it takes a lot more courage for athletes speaking out about Trump administration policies during the 2026 Games than they did less than a decade ago.

The echo chamber is “a hundred times louder than it was during the first Trump administration,” Rippon says. Now, he says, athletes could face real repercussions if they speak out about ICE activities or anything else the department does. But by speaking out, they give the world a different perspective on how Americans feel about the country’s politics.

In theory, he adds, the Olympics “are supposed to be an apolitical event, where everything is put aside and we can come together” to celebrate athletes from everywhere. “Well, it’s not like that, is it?” says Rippon. “I think that as an American right now, it’s impossible to believe that politics isn’t intertwined in everything we do.”

These messages — and the exchanges between athletes and pundits — are amplified through social media.

What happened during the 2026 Winter Games is similar to what happened at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, when gold-medal-winning Algerian boxer Iman Khelif became embroiled in a culture war over transgender people in sports, even though Khelif is not trans. Looking back, it’s reminiscent of the 1968 Mexico City Summer Games, during which African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the air during a medal ceremony to draw attention to America’s civil rights struggles.

For Simon Dressen, this is part of a natural evolution. Athletes are expected to speak about their beliefs, says an assistant professor of media and popular culture at Erasmus University Rotterdam. As people like Taylor Swift become political figures, so do athletes who enjoy similar levels of celebrity during the Games. “It reminds me a lot of how the Super Bowl halftime show was seen as political before we even knew what Bad Bunny wanted to do,” Driessen says.

The Bad Bunny comparison is apt. Like Glenn or former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality, he freely offered his views. She has become mostly “controversial” because she stands in opposition to the Trump administration and the MAGA agenda.

In their view, being a great American athlete, or a great artist, means conformity. When athletes reject this view, it feels like a win.