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<\/p>\nMILAN \u2014 The words on the sign were hard to read at first, lost as they were in a tightly-packed hodgepodge of fans watching the men\u2019s Olympic short program Saturday night at Milano Ice Skating Arena. But then Fred Danbank spread his arms apart and held his sign a little wider, a little higher, and now its message, his message, was made clear:<\/p>\n
\u201cAPOLOGIES TO THE WORLD
FOR OUR BAD BEHAVIOR,
WE WILL FIX OURSELVES!\u201d<\/p>\n
During a Games in which so many jeers have been directed at the United States, here now was an American figure skating fan from Greenwich, Conn., weighing in, doing so via an apology mixed with a hopeful message. We will fix ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on a world platform here right now,\u201d said Danbank, 61, an insurance executive who plans to retire at the end of the year. \u201cAnd people need to know that we, as Americans, appreciate the world, we love the world, and we want to be part of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lest he be dismissed as a flighty lefty, Danbank revealed some details about his family\u2019s political history. \u201cI was 40 years a Republican,\u201d he said. \u201cMy whole life, I\u2019ve been a Republican. My father was a Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rectangular flag sign was professionally made, with black\u00a0uppercase letters printed neatly in three decks over a white background, with hints of the American flag at the top and bottom. On the back is printed a message that focuses on the athletic competition being played out in Milan and across Northern Italy: \u201cGO TEAM USA.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n The flip side of Danbank\u2019s sign. (Jamie Squire \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Few people in this lower-bowl section of the arena seemed to react to the sign. Olympic figure skating legend Dorothy Hamill, 69, and her husband, John MacColl, happened to be seated directly behind Danback and his wife and daughter. Hamill, whose 1976 gold medal made her one of America\u2019s most popular Olympic celebrities, played no role in the sign\u2019s political message, although she said she was happy to talk figure skating with Danback\u2019s daughter. International incident averted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet Danback did acknowledge that some might object to the sign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a really fair question to ask,\u201d Danback said in the concourse during a break in the program. \u201cI would say we don\u2019t have many opportunities for the world to see us. This is one of them, and I have to use this because it seems like everyone is ignoring what\u2019s happening. And we can\u2019t ignore it. If we ignore it, we get ourselves back to the 1930s.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of pubic displays of political affection, or lack thereof, Danback was not an outlier at the team figure skating competition. Elsewhere in the building, a woman named Patti Masini from just outside Yerington, Nev., ambled about in a frilly pink-on-white mountain goat fur outfit with \u201cTrump\u201d emblazoned across her lower back. Masini, who said she\u2019s \u201cin her late 40s,\u201d insisted her clothing was not intended to be a political statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here because I enjoy the Olympics and always have enjoyed the Olympics,\u201d Masini said. \u201cAnd when it hit me \u2014 it did strike me \u2014 that, you know what, support Trump at the Olympics. And so I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
The displays, it could be argued, violate long-held Olympic rules that forbid political statements at its events. In 2014, the head of Russia\u2019s Communist Party was forced to take down a hammer-and-sickle Soviet banner he displayed during a short track speed skating ceremony. The International Olympic Committee did not respond to a message seeking comment about the Saturday displays.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not kid ourselves: The Olympic Games have never been free of politics, social commentary, and protest. These ventures can be heroic, as when Tommie Smith and John Carlos valiantly raised their fists as a Black Power salute in Mexico City in 1968. They can be sinister, like Hitler\u2019s hopes to turn the 1936 Berlin Games into a Nazi propaganda vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s different about the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics is that it\u2019s the United States that\u2019s playing defense, from Italians protesting about ICE presence in their home country to the boos mixed in with some cheers that rained down on Vice President JD Vance when he appeared on screen during the opening ceremony Friday night at Milano San Siro Olympic Stadium. Vance was booed again Sunday while leaving a women\u2019s hockey game between the United States and Finland, yet was largely ignored at a figure skating competition on Saturday.<\/p>\n
While the likes of the sign-holding Danbank and the pink-clad Masini are willing to put their political leanings on Olympic display, a new reality has emerged for the athletes: being put in prime position to answer for the actions of the country they represent.<\/p>\n
![\"Amber](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2259840804-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n \u201cPolitics affect us all,\u201d says U.S. figure skater Amber Glenn. \u201cIt is something that I will not just be quiet about.\u201d (Mike Lawrie \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little hard,\u201d said Hunter Hess, a halfpipe skier from Bend, Ore. \u201cThere\u2019s obviously a lot going on that I\u2019m not the biggest fan of. Wearing the flag doesn\u2019t mean I represent everything that\u2019s going on in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
The way Hess sees it, \u201cI\u2019m representing my friends and family back home, the people that represented it before me, all the things that I believe are good about the U.S. I just think if it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I\u2019m representing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
American figure skater Amber Glenn, who identifies as a bisexual\/pansexual woman, responded to a question about the president\u2019s approach to the LGBTQ+ community by saying, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s been a hard time for the community overall, and this administration. It is the first time that we\u2019ve had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights. And now especially, it\u2019s not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glenn has a response to the tried-and-true rebuttal that she should \u201cstick to sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that a lot of people say, \u2018You\u2019re just an athlete,\u2019 like, \u2018Stick to your job,\u2019 \u2018Shut up about politics,\u2019\u201d Glenn said. \u201cBut politics affect us all. It is something that I will not just be quiet about, because it is something that affects us in our everyday lives. So of course, there are things that I disagree with, but as a community, we are strong, and we support each other, and brighter days are ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 The words on the sign were hard to read at first, lost as they were in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,12663,3,1082,1767,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-455553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-global-sports","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-olympics","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}