A US women’s hockey star has hit back at President Donald Trump after he made a distasteful comment following the team’s gold medal success at Milan-Cortina.
Both the women’s and men’s US teams secured gold medals with 2–1 victories over Canada at the Milan-Cortina Games, which helped the US finish second behind Norway in the overall medal standings.
After the men’s team’s triumph, Trump spoke to the squad via a phone call, while FBI Director Kash Patel joined in the celebrations and was seen wearing a team jersey while sporting a gold medal he had borrowed from one of the players.
However, despite the jubilant scenes, some of Trump’s comments have been criticised.
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During the phone call, the 79-year-old invited the team to attend his State of the Union address, which took place on Tuesday (24 February), while also making a distasteful comment about the women’s team.
“I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team,” Trump said. “You do know that. I do believe I probably would be impeached [if the women’s team wasn’t invited].”
Despite receiving the invitation, the women’s team did not attend the State of the Union address “due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments” of the athletes.
“We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal-winning US Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,” the spokesperson said.
On Wednesday (25 February), US women’s ice hockey captain and five-time Olympic medallist Hilary Knight offered her take on Trump’s comment, describing it as “distasteful”.
Speaking on SportsCentre, she said: “I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke and, unfortunately, that is overshadowing a lot of the success — the success of women at the Olympics competing for Team USA and achieving amazing gold medal feats.
“We’re just focusing on celebrating the women in our room, the extraordinary efforts, and continuing to celebrate three gold medals in programme history, as well as the double gold for both men’s and women’s teams at the same time — and really not detract from that with a distasteful joke.”
Meanwhile, Knight’s team-mate Kelly Pannek shared a similar view on the situation and claimed the phone call was “not surprising”.
“We all know, being there, what it felt like to have [the men’s team’s] support throughout the tournament, to support them and how great a moment it was for everyone who was a fan of both teams,” Pannek said.
“The phone call specifically — it’s not surprising, to be frank. I don’t know why we’d expect differently.”
Topics: Donald Trump
Luke Davies