Donovan Carrillo is not gay, but he’s certainly been teased like it. The figure skater from Mexico at these Milan Winter Olympics has talked publicly in the past about issues he’s faced simply for being a man in figure skating.
Now Carrillo has made it to the men’s singles final, the only Mexican ever to reach the final round of their competition at two Winter Olympics.
He’s also the only figure skater — men or women — competing for a country in the Americas south of the United States at the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics. Carrillo held the same distinction in 2022.
That’s pretty extraordinary.
Carrillo barely eeked into the final free skate in Milan, finishing 23rd of the 29 skaters from the short program, with only the top 24 advancing to the final.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly newsletter is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Related
Donovan Carrillo has faced various roadblocks in his figure skating career. One of the biggest hurdles has been financial — covering the cost of equipment, coaching, travel, ice time.
“It was so hard to get anyone to trust in my dream,” he told Olympics.com of his efforts to pay for his Olympic dream. “Of course, I would have liked to have more support, but I feel like everything happened for a reason.”
Donovan Carrillo dealt with gay teasing as a male figure skater
Carrillo also talked before his competition in Milan about the stigma of being first a boy, and now a young man, in figure skating, and the mentality of others around him in Mexico that he’s had to face.
“When I was a kid, the mentality in Mexico was that men shouldn’t practice artistic sports,” he said. “A lot of people judged me, but I’m just grateful that my parents allowed me to discover this noble sport. Figure skating has helped me understand how to express my emotions through movement, and to grow as a person. I feel like myself when I’m on the ice.”
Carrillo talked publicly before the 2022 Winter Olympics about not being gay, but still experiencing homophobic teasing while growing up skating instead of playing other more “masculine” sports like soccer.
“I don’t mind being called gay because I am NOT,” Carrillo wrote in Spanish a few years ago. “It infuriates me that they see the word gay as a mockery or an insult to my effort.”
“I admire and respect the LGBT community because I live with many of its members but I am not part of that community.”
Carrillo doesn’t have a shot at a medal in the men’s singles competition, but for him just making it to his second Olympics final final has been a huge accomplishment he’ll relish in on the ice and for the rest of his life.
Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.