American figure skater Johnny Weir will not be competing at the Sochi Winter Games next year since he didn’t register for the qualifiers for the national championships from which the United States’ team is chosen.
US Figure Skating has confirmed that Weir missed the competition’s Sept 1 registration deadline, according to Sports Illustrated.
Weir, a two-time Olympian, has not competed since withdrawing from the Rostelecom Cup last year and is reportedly not eligible for a bye into the championships as he would have had to have placed in the top five of last year’s nationals or claimed medals at the last Olympics or world championships to do so.
Weir has been a consistently outspoken opponent of a Games boycott in response to Russia’s passage of a series of anti-gay laws.
“I am directly against a boycott of any kind. While many people can sit on their couch at home and say, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t go to Russia because it’s bad’ — staying away is something I think is the worst possible thing we can do,” Weir said in a recent interview with ESPN 2.
“Even if we stay away, Russia will still put on an Olympics, they will win all of the medals, and it will be even more of a propaganda machine for Russia,” he added.
Weir has said he plans to perform in St Petersburg at the end of September, a city that passed its own anti-gay gag law before the enactment of a similar nationwide measure in June.
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