Timothy LeDuc is an American pair skater. With their skating partner, Ashley Cain-Gribble, they are a two-time U.S. national champion, the 2018 Four Continents silver medalist, and a three-time Grand Prix Series medallist.
Timothy Leduc: Partner| Wife| When does skate| Parents
Partner:
The power performers in skating, Ashley Cain-Gribble, and Timothy Leduc, are competing in the Winter Olympics happening in Beijing from February 4 to February 20. The team is the two-time winners of the US Figure Skating Championship and both skaters are big cheerleaders of each other.
Recently when news broke that Leduc will be participating in the Olympics as the first openly non-binary athlete, Cain-Gribble did not lose a moment to support the 31-year-old, who uses them/their pronouns since 2021.
Wife:
U.S. pairs skater Timothy LeDuc became the country’s first openly nonbinary Winter Olympian when they took the ice Friday night. “It was such a joyous moment for us out there today,” LeDuc said. The 31-year-old LeDuc and pairs partner Ashley Gain-Gribble placed seventh in their Olympic debut.
She said, “I think we want to dedicate these performances and this title to all the people that felt like they didn’t belong – or were told that they didn’t belong – in this sport. Many times we were told that, even when we teamed up.”
When does skate:
LeDuc, whose pronouns are they/them, did not want the narrative to focus on the history ahead. They wanted it to be the beginning of a shift, a way of showing queer people that they have the opportunity “to be open and be authentic to themselves and everything that makes them unique, and still achieve success in sport.”
With a brilliant performance at Capital Indoor Stadium on Friday, LeDuc did just that.
Skating with partner Ashley Cain-Gribble in the short program of the pairs event, LeDuc became the first openly nonbinary athlete to compete at the Winter Olympics – a historic step for LGBTQ representation and visibility at the Games.
Parents:
The background Mike was referencing was the family’s church background. The LeDuc family was part of a “fairly traditional evangelical church” which “traditionally views the LGBT lifestyle as immoral,” according to Mike. So Timothy didn’t initially receive support from their family after coming out.
“[My parents’] initial reaction was, ‘We love you, but we need to change you,’” Timothy said. “‘We need to fix this problem.’”
“It was very difficult with my family at first,” they added. “I was in a very Christian, conservative environment, going to church so many times a week. I believed the lies that I was told that I was an abomination.”
