Photo: nicole__silveira/Instagram
The2022 Beijing Winter Olympicswill see couple Kim Meylemans and Nicole Silveira, two skeleton racers, vying for the gold medal for their respective countries.
Meylemans, who represents Belgium, met Silveira, an Olympian from Brazil, three years ago at the World Cup. However, the pair only wentInstagram officialover the holidays, and it was a big moment for them.
“I think from the beginning I wasn’t 100 percent sure that’s who I was and what I wanted. So it took me a while to finally be OK with it, I guess,” Silveira, 27, toldTodayin an interview published Thursday. “So for a moment there, it was me hiding a lot of who I was and hiding Kim essentially from a lot of people and the closest people that I knew of us.”
“But making that post was really, I think was the biggest weight off my shoulders,” Silveira added.
“Two teams are better than one 🇧🇪♥️🇧🇷,” the joint caption read, including the emojis for the Belgian and Brazilian flags.
At this year’s Winter Olympics, the two athletes will be playing for their respective countries, but the competition on the skeleton track won’t feel particularly fierce.
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“I think people always think of it as competing against each other, but I mean skeleton is a sport where you essentially race the clock,” Meylemans said. “It’s not like we stand on the line against each other. It’s not like we step into a ring and have to fight each other. So I think it’s it’s a bit non-realistic to think that we’re actually enemies.”
Silveira added that, as the “only” skeleton racers for their home countries, their kinship surpasses any desire to be competitive.
“We’re pretty much the only athletes for our countries,” she said. “So we tend to reach out to people for added support because we don’t have that huge team that other countries have. And so I think we’re also able to help each other in that sense.”
In an Instagram post from last summer, Silveira said that she is “forever thankful for sports and the incredible connections that come out of it,” sharing a picture of the pair.
“Amazing week playing a little bit of tourist and catching up with this lovely Belgian lady ♥️ missing you already!” she added, to which Meylemans responded with a string of heart emojis.
The skeleton competition will take place from Feb. 10 to 12.
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, visitTeamUSA.org. Watch the Winter Olympics, beginning Feb 3, and the Paralympics, beginning March 4, on NBC.
source: people.com
