Obama to Skip Sochi Games in Apparent Snub Over Anti-Gay Law

US President Barack Obama dealt a sharp reprimand to Russia over its anti-gay laws on Tuesday by including two openly homosexual athletes in the official delegation to the Winter Olympics in Sochi and declining to attend the Games himself. The White House announced that Billie Jean King, a gay former tennis champion, and Caitlin Cahow, a gay Olympic medalist in ice hockey, would be included in the US delegations to the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games in February. For the first time since the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, the US president, vice president and first lady are to be absent from both delegations. White House officials said in a statement that Obama would be too busy to attend the Games, but that the delegation “represents the diversity that is the United States.”

http://en.ria.ru/world/20131218/185678088/Obama-to-Skip-Sochi-Games-in-Apparent-Snub-Over-Anti-Gay-Law.html