© RIA Novosti.
Alexei Malgavko
...“I don't think it's a good idea (click here) to make protests here, no one cares,” said Austria’s Iraschko-Stolz, who married her wife Isabel Stolz last year.
“I am here as a sportswoman,” she added. “To jump pretty good is also a statement …I know Russia will go and make the right steps in the future and we should give them time."
Iraschko-Stolz, 30, has been a pioneer both as an openly gay athlete in majority-Catholic Austria and in the sport of women’s ski jumping, which only joins the Olympic program in Sochi, 90 years after the first men’s competition at the Chamonix 1924 Games.
During her career, Iraschko-Stolz said she had seen first-hand how attitudes have moved one.
"I always say I'm together with my woman now and don't have any problems, not in Russia or with the Austrian [ski] federation. Ten years ago it was different,” she said.
Iraschko-Stolz finished first in two of three official individual
training sessions Sunday, with 17-year-old Japanese prodigy Sara
Takanashi taking first place in the final session.As the first Olympic women’s final on Monday draws closer, there remain doubts about the fitness of US world champion Sarah Hendrickson, who has decided not to attempt any competition standard jumps in training to avoid aggravating a knee ligament injury she suffered in August.... Iraschko floats on air.
