Olympic freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy playfully celebrated breaking his thumb during a practice on Wednesday, saying it will prevent him from shaking hands with Vice President Mike Pence.
“Silver linings!” the Olympian wrote in a tweet on Thursday.
Kenworthy has made it no secret that he’s not a big fan of the vice president, who has been open in his opposition to LGBTQ rights.
The skier, who is gay, said he believed Pence was a “strange choice” to lead the U.S. delegation at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“To have somebody leading the delegation that [has] directly attacked the LGBTQ community ... just seems like a bad fit,” he said on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” earlier this month. “I feel like the Olympics is all about inclusion and people coming together, and it seems like it’s not really doing that.”
Kenworthy, along with figure skater Adam Rippon, are the only two openly gay men competing for the U.S. at the Winter Games.
Rippon has also spoken out about Pence’s anti-gay stance, as well as the vice president’s efforts to extend an olive branch to the queer athlete.
“You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy?” Rippon told USA Today in January, referring to a dangerous and medically bogus treatment Pence once suggested could help people change their sexual behavior. “I’m not buying it.”
Rippon made waves earlier this month by declining to meet with Pence before the opening ceremonies, though he said he’d be willing to talk with him after the Olympics concluded.
Kenworthy might have found himself in a similarly awkward position of having to either refuse to shake hands with Pence ― who in 2006 said marriage equality would lead to “societal collapse” ― or act publicly cordial toward a man who doesn’t believe he should have the same rights as his straight teammates.
But then, he broke his thumb.