Why Has *This* Olympic Moment Caused A ‘Homophobic’ Scandal?

Team GB divers Jack Laugher and Chris Mears have been caught up in a homophobic scandal and its ridiculous.

The Olympics- a place of green swimming pools, gold medals and flirty leg strokes. A.k.a all of the best things you can possibly watch on TV, all under one roof.

See: Did Rebecca Adlington and Mark Foster Just Prove They’re Together?!

However, despite the fact the games are meant to be about teamwork and companionship all that good stuff, there has been a massive outcry over the way in which some Olympic coverage has been reported.

So, this is the situation- on Wednesday, team GB divers Jack Laugher and Chris Mears pulled it out of the (swimming) bag and managed to scoop a gold medal for their doubles dive in the Men’s synchronised 3 metre springboard final.

Becoming an Olympic champion probably calls for a bit of a celebration, right?! Hell yeah it does!

However, despite the incredible victory, the boys’ celebration (a well deserved hug) has been absurdly criticised as being ‘unmanly’. Because hugging is only for women, apparently. Who knew?

However, viewers are simply not having it- as many have taken to social media to share that they feel the coverage enforces harmful stereotypical gender assumptions and is offensive to the LGBT community.

See: Helen Skelton Hits Back After Being Slammed For Her Olympics Outfits

LGBT charity Diversity Role Models, an organisation working towards tackling homophobic bullying in schools, has taken to Twitter to share ‘We’re frustrated to see gender stereotypes perpetuated instead of celebrating @JackLaugher & @ChrisMears93‘s gold’.

Others have shared messages such as ‘Jack Laugher & Chris Mears won a gold Olympic medal & [people are] criticising their masculinity for hugging to celebrate’ and ‘pathetic for making comments about Laugher and Mears hugging after winning Gold. Nothing remotely unmanly about it’.

Thankfully, the boys are anything but ashamed of their victorious moment (and rightly so), as Chris has shared the iconic moment to Twitter- captioned ‘A moment in time I’ll never forget’.

Jack has also shared an image of the moment the boys became Olympic champions, writing ‘OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!!! @ChrisMears93 WE DID IT MAN!!!!

Boys, please keep hugging (and winning gold medals).

Alice Perry 

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