Olympic athlete vows to win medal in order to ‘burn a US flag on the podium’

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BMX freestyle Olympian Chelsea Wolfe said it was her goal to win a medal in the Tokyo Olympics so she could “burn a US flag on the podium.”

“My goal is to win the Olympics so I can burn a US flag on the podium. This is what they focus on during a pandemic. Hurting trans children,” Wolfe said in a Facebook post last year in response to a story about the Trump administration’s stance on transgender participation in female sports.

Wolfe, a transgender woman, has since deleted the post, but she may still have an opportunity to medal at the Olympics. The BMX rider has qualified as an alternate for the Olympics, an accomplishment Wolfe in part credited to people who “helped me accept that I am a woman.”

“I searched for so long trying to find out if there had ever been a professional trans bmx rider to show me that who I am would be okay and unfortunately I found no one,” Wolfe wrote in an Instagram post last week. “Eventually I started to meet some amazing women who helped me accept that I am a woman just like any other and that I deserve a place to exist in the world just like everyone else.”

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Despite her rhetoric about the flag, Wolfe said she still cares about the country she could represent as an athlete.

“Anyone who thinks that I don’t care about the United States is sorely mistaken,” Wolfe told Fox News. “One of the reasons why I work so hard to represent the United States in international competition is to show the world that this country has morals and values, that it’s not all of the bad things that we’re known for. I take a stand against fascism because I care about this country, and I’m not going to let it fall into the hands of fascists after so many people have fought and sacrificed to prevent fascism from taking hold abroad. As a citizen who wants to be proud of my home country, I’m sure as hell not going to let it take hold here.”

The International Olympic Committee has specific rules outlining the conditions in which transgender women are allowed to compete in female events.

One rule states that transgender athletes must declare their identity as female and not change that declaration for sporting purposes for at least four years. Transgender athletes are also required to demonstrate a testosterone level beneath a specific threshold for at least 12 months prior to competing.

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The IOC argues that the rules are in place because “the overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition.”

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