Captain Hilary Knight calls out Donald Trump for ‘distasteful joke’, focuses on US women’s Olympic ice hockey gold

WASHINGTON – Hilary Knight, who captained the

US women’s ice hockey team to a gold medal

at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, did not mince her words when asked about comments President Donald Trump made about her team following the American men’s victory at the Games.

After the

US men beat Canada for gold

on Feb 22, they took a call from him while celebrating in their locker room with Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel and the President extended an invite to them for the Feb 24 State of the Union and a White House visit.

“I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that?” Mr Trump said.

He then joked that failing to invite the women’s team would likely result in his impeachment.

“I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke and unfortunately that is overshadowing a lot of the success, the success of just women at the Olympics carrying Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,” Knight said on ESPN.

A White House official said, as Mr Trump has stated, they look forward to hosting the women’s team. The women’s team have not confirmed any plans to visit.

The US women’s team passed on the invite to attend the State of the Union, saying in a statement that while they were grateful for the recognition of their achievement, the timing and scheduled commitments meant they were unable to be there.

Knight preferred to emphasise her team’s achievement, saying: “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 at the same time. And really not detract from that with a distasteful joke.”

In the women’s final, Knight deflected a shot from Laila Edwards past Canadian goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens with just over two minutes to play, forcing overtime during which Megan Keller clinched the US women’s third Olympic ice hockey title.

Knight’s tally marked her 15th career Olympic goal and 33rd career Games point, breaking the US Olympic women’s hockey record for all-time goals and points. It was her fifth and final Olympics.

Meanwhile, in other Games news, the 2030 French Alps Winter Olympics organising committee confirmed the departure of its chief executive Cyril Linette on Feb 25 following other resignations and infighting between Linette and Edgar Grospiron, who chairs the organising committee.

His departure had been expected after the committee officially cited “irreconcilable differences” between the two in a recent statement.

“This decision reflects the collective desire to give the organising committee fresh impetus through renewed governance at a time when, with its foundations now in place, a new key phase in the operational delivery of the project is beginning,” the French Alps organising committee said in a statement.

Other recent departures include those of director of operations Anne Murac and communications director Arthur Richer.

Grospiron said the turmoil would not derail the preparations, adding: “The Games are now starting in a troubled, turbulent context, but the internal disagreements we have experienced within the organisation must not obscure the essential fact that the course remains unchanged and the operational work continues every day. This governance crisis has no impact on the delivery of the Games.” REUTERS