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UTC</time></div><div class="article-le-byle" data-activy-map="le-byle-article-top">By <span class="byle-name"><a href=">Jo Yurba</a></span></div></sectn><div class="article-body__ntent article-body-font--loadg"><p class="">Amerin figure skater Timothy LeDuc uld make history this week. </p><p class="">On Thursday, LeDuc, who genr-ntral pronouns, and their partner, Ashley Ca-Gribble, will pete the U.S. Figure Skatg Champnships wh the hope of securg a spot on Team USA for the 2022 Wter Olympics, Beijg Febary.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><div id="taboolaReadMoreBelow"></div><p class="">If they succeed, LeDuc would bee the first out nonbary person to pete the Wter Gam.</p><p class="">LeDuc, 31, is no stranger to historic firsts — they were the first openly gay athlete to w gold a U.S. pairs event 2019 — but makg Team USA would be pecially meangful bee LeDuc, who is om Cedar Rapids, Iowa, hasn’t always felt wele their sport.</p><p class="">In an terview on the <a href=" target="_blank">latt episo of NBCLX’s</a> podst <a href=">My New Favore Olympian</a>, they said as a person who “exists and really thriv outsi of the bary,” navigatg a genred sport n be plited.</p><sectn class="embed-widget embedWidget embed-widget--medium"><div class="embed-widget__e-prentatn embed-widget__iamely-art19" style="--iame-height:0px"><div><div class="iamely-art19 iamely-player iamely-embed"><div class="iamely-rponsive" style="height: 200px; paddg-bottom: 0;"><iame data-src=" loadg="lazy" src="//" allowfullscreen scrollg="no" allow="encrypted-media *;"></iame></div></div></div></div></sectn><p class="">“They’re gog to be the people that don’t unrstand or would be very quick to ph me back to the box of, you know, they look at me, they see that I have a beard or they look at maybe my physil characteristics and say, ‘You’re a boy; act like a boy. What are you dog?’” they said.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="">LeDuc said they once had a tryout wh a girl who refed to skate wh them. </p><p class="">“She thought me beg gay was gog to be a liabily,” they said. “It was not an optn for her an otherwise great partnership that girl and I uld have had.” </p><p class="">In another cint, one of their ach pulled them asi prr to an ternatnal petn and said, “Timothy, go out and show them how mascule you are. That’s how you will w,” LeDuc relled.</p><p class="">Then, 2016, LeDuc found their current skatg partner, Ca-Gribble, who accepted them and celebrated their nontradnal partnership. </p><p class="">“When Timothy and I teamed up, we never wanted to be what was looked at as the tradnal team,” Ca-Gribble said on the podst. “They always had the storyle of the male is super mascule and strong and always jt to e and save the girl who is a wilted ltle flower and is weak, or was a full-on love story, where obvly a male and a female fall love wh each other.”</p><p class="">LeDuc said Ca-Gribble unrstands their “stggle for fdg thenticy” bee at 5 feet, 6 ch tall, she is about six ch taller than her petors, and she’s been told her body isn’t right for the sport.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="">“I don’t thk Ashley was really ever terted beg the agile girl,” LeDuc said. “She’s such a powerful, amazg athlete. So for her, when I kd of me to her and said, ‘You know, I don’t really want to do this romantic style. It don’t really seem like ,’ she was like, ‘Heck yeah, I’m good wh that.’”</p><p class="">LeDuc’s journey to fdg a supportive figure skatg partner and wng gold at the natnal champnships 2019 hasn’t been an easy one. When they me out to their parents as gay at 18, they said their fay was attendg a tradnal evangelil church, so their reactn was, “We love you, but we need to change you.”</p><div class="remend-tersectn-ref" data-activy-map="remend-article-body-remend" data-ttid="remend-wrapper"></div><div class="remend-tersectn-ref" data-activy-map="remend-article-body-remend" data-ttid="remend-wrapper"></div><p class="">“At one pot, one of my fay members brought iends home om a church group, and they basilly tried to perform an exorcism on me, tried to st my mons out and were prayg on on all sis of me, tryg to remedy my, we lled , same-sex attractn,” LeDuc said.</p><p class="">They said their parents are now supportive and were acceptg when they me out as nonbary at 28. But the figure skatg world remas rigid s tradnal genr expectatns for athlet, LeDuc said, and that’s somethg they are tryg to help change.</p><p class="">LeDuc is volved an athlete mentorship program through the Uned Stat Olympic and Paralympic Commtee’s Athlete Advisory Council.</p><p class="">“We are now tryg to pass on that rmatn to the young and up-and-g skaters, so that they n be even better athlet, so that they n have even better experienc the sport and maybe they n avoid some of the obstacl that we all faced the sport, if they get this rmatn ahead of time,” they said.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="">An creasg number of athlet have e out as transgenr or nonbary recent years. Openly transgenr athlet peted for the first time Olympics history durg the Summer Gam. <a href=">New Zealand weightlifter Lrel Hubbard</a> peted the women’s super-heavyweight 87 kilogram-pl (192 pound-pl) tegory, BMX etyler Chelsea Wolfe traveled to Tokyo as an alternate on Team USA and nonbary Amerin skateboarr <a href=">Alana Smh peted</a> women’s street.</p><p class="">Canadian soccer player Qun beme the <a href=">first openly transgenr and nonbary athlete</a> to w an Olympic medal followg their team’s feat of Swen the women’s fal Augt.</p><p class="">Overall, a <a href=">rerd-breakg</a> <a href=">186 out LGBTQ athlet (at least) peted at the Summer Gam</a>, acrdg to the LGBTQ sports webse Outsports. <a href=">LGBTQ athlet</a>, or Team LGBTQ, as Outsports referred to them, won <a href=">33 medals</a>.</p><p class="">Cyd Zeigler, -founr of Outsports, said many of the teams for the Wter Gam are currently beg named, so the webse don’t have an ial tally of how many LGBTQ athlet are petg. </p><p class="">However, Zeigler said an email that he’s “nfint that the total will be more than double” what was the 2018 Wter Gam Pyeongchang, South Korea, where at least 15 out LGBTQ athlet peted.</p><p class="">LeDuc and Ca-Gribble will pete pairs short Thursday and pairs ee Saturday at the <a href=" target="_blank">U.S. Figure Skatg Champnships</a>.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="endmark"><strong><em>Follow </em></strong><a href=" target="_blank"><strong><em>NBC Out</em></strong></a><strong><em> on </em></strong><a href=" target="_blank"><strong><em>Twter</em></strong></a><strong><em>, </em></strong><a href=" 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gay figure skater

Growg up, I was always told that figure skatg was a pretty gay sport. We had Adam Rippon and Eric Radford brgg glory to the rabow flag PyeongChang, Johnny Weir chattg away the mentary booth, and the two great Brians – Orser and Boano – out and proud. I got lulled to believg…

Contents:

THERE HAVE BEEN AT LEAST 39 GAY OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATERS. HERE’S THE LIST

Guillme Cizeron is the sixth gay man to w Olympic gold figure skatg. * gay figure skater *

There have been at least 39 gay men to pete figure skatg at the Wter Olympic Gam over the years, wh eight publicly out men petg 2022. LGBT historian Tony Scupham-Bilton has intified the men over the years, cludg a pastakg procs of intifyg who is gay. The gay men have bed for 15 Olympic medals, wh several ready to pete pairs figure skatg later this week.

In addn to the 37 gay men, Timothy LeDuc is nonbary and will make their Olympic but this week. Six of the gay men to pete have won Olympic gold medals:.

THREE OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATERS E OUT — 2 GAY MEN AND 1 QUEER WOMAN

Three figure skaters, Amerin Jason Brown and Canadians Pl Poirier and Kalyn Weaver, me out as gay and queer for Pri Month. * gay figure skater *

Three Olympic figure skaters have e out for Pri Month, cludg two gay men and a queer woman. The three athlet are: Amerin sgl figure skater Jason Brown, who is gay; Canadian ice dancer Pl Poirier, who is gay, and Canadian ice dancer Kalyn Weaver, who is queer.

“[Beg a gay athlete] hasn’t been somethg that I’ve really talked about very much, pecially a public settg, ” Poirier said.

But he kept his sexualy a private matter until 2014, when the Uned Stat sent a legatn to Rsia ma up of high-profile gay athlet. "I never felt like I need to before, so whether people figured out if I was gay or not, I had to make official, why I had to e out publicly. But he never mentned beg gay until he started playg hockey for the Toronto Gay Hockey Associatn, where he started lerally wearg that part of his inty on his sleeve, somethg he discsed wh The Hockey News 2012.

JOHNNY WEIR OUT: FLAMBOYANT FIGURE SKATER ADMS NEW TOBGRAPHY HE'S GAY

Adam Rippon may be the first out figure skater to pete the Olympics, but he's not the only gay man to have land an axel on the world stage. * gay figure skater *

Shortly before petg at Worlds that same year, the German newspaper Bild-Zeung outed Curry as gay, g a mor sndal Europe, but Curry went on to w the event anyway, makg him the first skater to w the European, Olympic and World champnships a sgle season, acrdg to the BBC. After years of qutns of whether he and Babilonia would ever date, Gardner revealed to Scene magaze 2006 that he was gay. While qutns about the flamboyant skater followed him through his reer -- two Canadian broadsters ught flak and spired a Pri Hoe prott after makg homophobic ments about Weir at the 2010 Olympics -- he did not e out until 2011, when he revealed he was gay his memoir, Wele to My World.

Skaters would later say McCall's homosexualy had been an open secret wh the sport. Stt Haton his book Landg It later creded Pockar and Rob McCall for helpg him get over personal homophobia, but Haton also got cricized for posthumoly outg the men.

THERE ARE 8 OUT GAY MALE SKATERS AT THE OLYMPICS. IN 2014, THERE WERE 0.

* gay figure skater *

He me out publicly as gay 2008, and told that many gay skaters pete but don't discs their sexualy publicly.

OUT GAY FIGURE SKATER JIMMY MAN: I OWN MY NARRATIVE

Johnny Weir admted Thursday what he's tried half-heartedly to hi all the years: He's gay.   * gay figure skater *

The gay skater prevly hoped to make the team 2006 and 2010 but fell short both years. Hendrickx spoke January spoke to Dutch media outlet ZiZo about what 's like to travel an ternatnal sport when homosexualy is still owned upon much of the world.

ADAM RIPPON IS U.S.'S FIRST OPENLY GAY MAN TO QUALIFY FOR WTER OLYMPICS

The Uned Stat has never sent an openly gay male athlete to the Wter Olympics. In Pyeongchang this year, Team USA may have two. * gay figure skater *

Spanish LGBT media outlet reported that Raya was the first Spanish Olympian ever to publicly announce he was gay. Important Note: this blog only featur athlet who voluntarily, personally and publicly disclosed themselv as gay. NOTE January 2018: Sce this blog is almost two years old and this beg an Olympic year, I have now wrten and published “Seven More Fabulo Out Gay Men of Figure Skatg (and One Bisexual Woman.)” Do check out.

Please read “Five Key Msag on The Importance of Out Gay Olympic Athlet”. Recently, Out Magaze me out wh their list of “100 Hot Out Gay Men” which clud people entertament, sports, polics, bs, etc. Therefore, sce the World Figure Skatg champnships are beg held next week (March 30 – April 3) Boston, first time the USA 8 years, I am publishg my own list of seven hot out gay men of Figure Skatg.

Print Obama appoted Brian, as an out proud gay man, as one our Amerin legat to the Wter Olympics Sochi, Rsia 2014 to unter some of the close-md anti-gay rhetoric of Rsian Print Vladmir Put (see my blog “Rsia, LGBT Rights and the Psychology of Bullyg”). Rudy is the first openly gay US champn and also later shared about beg HIV+.

MIKE PENCE TANGL WH OLYMPIAN ADAM RIPPON OVER GAY RIGHTS RERD

In December 2014, Eric Radford of Canada publicly me out as gay an terview wh the LGBT publitn Outsports, bemg the first petive figure skater ever to e out at the height of his reer while still a ntenr for champnship tl. Then March, 2015, Eric and his partner Megan Duhamel won the world pairs tle, makg him the first openly gay figure skater ever to w a gold medal at that petn.

He is an ambassador for the Canadian Olympic Commtee’s #OneTeam program to bat homophobia sports. Adam Rippon out as gay a feature story of US Figure Skatg Magaze a few months ago and how do he follow up the story? There is an abundance of talented LGBTQ dividuals the sport, though the list of proment dividuals is entirely populated by gay men.

JOHNNY WEIR EXPLAS WHY HE WAED TO PUBLICLY COME OUT AS GAY

Skaters still ment on the prsure to rema the closet while petg and to avoid speakg out about LGBTQ rights, though is also nsired one of the gayt sports. Bra's gay Capta Robert Jon popularized the sport of figure skatg back 1772 wh his highly popular book 'A Treatise on Skatg'. Canadian Eric Radford was the first out gay man to w an Olympic gold medal when he did so recently at the 2018 South Korea gam (Bra's John Curry won gold 1976 before g out publicly).

The Internatnal Gay Figure Skatg Unn (IGFSU) was created as an tert group for the muny.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* GAY FIGURE SKATER

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UTC</time></div><div class="article-le-byle" data-activy-map="le-byle-article-top">By <span class="byle-name"><a href=">Jo Yurba</a></span></div></sectn><div class="article-body__ntent article-body-font--loadg"><p class="">Amerin figure skater Timothy LeDuc uld make history this week. </p><p class="">On Thursday, LeDuc, who genr-ntral pronouns, and their partner, Ashley Ca-Gribble, will pete the U.S. Figure Skatg Champnships wh the hope of securg a spot on Team USA for the 2022 Wter Olympics, Beijg Febary.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><div id="taboolaReadMoreBelow"></div><p class="">If they succeed, LeDuc would bee the first out nonbary person to pete the Wter Gam.</p><p class="">LeDuc, 31, is no stranger to historic firsts — they were the first openly gay athlete to w gold a U.S. pairs event 2019 — but makg Team USA would be pecially meangful bee LeDuc, who is om Cedar Rapids, Iowa, hasn’t always felt wele their sport.</p><p class="">In an terview on the <a href=" target="_blank">latt episo of NBCLX’s</a> podst <a href=">My New Favore Olympian</a>, they said as a person who “exists and really thriv outsi of the bary,” navigatg a genred sport n be plited.</p><sectn class="embed-widget embedWidget embed-widget--medium"><div class="embed-widget__e-prentatn embed-widget__iamely-art19" style="--iame-height:0px"><div><div class="iamely-art19 iamely-player iamely-embed"><div class="iamely-rponsive" style="height: 200px; paddg-bottom: 0;"><iame data-src=" loadg="lazy" src="//" allowfullscreen scrollg="no" allow="encrypted-media *;"></iame></div></div></div></div></sectn><p class="">“They’re gog to be the people that don’t unrstand or would be very quick to ph me back to the box of, you know, they look at me, they see that I have a beard or they look at maybe my physil characteristics and say, ‘You’re a boy; act like a boy. What are you dog?’” they said.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="">LeDuc said they once had a tryout wh a girl who refed to skate wh them. </p><p class="">“She thought me beg gay was gog to be a liabily,” they said. “It was not an optn for her an otherwise great partnership that girl and I uld have had.” </p><p class="">In another cint, one of their ach pulled them asi prr to an ternatnal petn and said, “Timothy, go out and show them how mascule you are. That’s how you will w,” LeDuc relled.</p><p class="">Then, 2016, LeDuc found their current skatg partner, Ca-Gribble, who accepted them and celebrated their nontradnal partnership. </p><p class="">“When Timothy and I teamed up, we never wanted to be what was looked at as the tradnal team,” Ca-Gribble said on the podst. “They always had the storyle of the male is super mascule and strong and always jt to e and save the girl who is a wilted ltle flower and is weak, or was a full-on love story, where obvly a male and a female fall love wh each other.”</p><p class="">LeDuc said Ca-Gribble unrstands their “stggle for fdg thenticy” bee at 5 feet, 6 ch tall, she is about six ch taller than her petors, and she’s been told her body isn’t right for the sport.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="">“I don’t thk Ashley was really ever terted beg the agile girl,” LeDuc said. “She’s such a powerful, amazg athlete. So for her, when I kd of me to her and said, ‘You know, I don’t really want to do this romantic style. It don’t really seem like ,’ she was like, ‘Heck yeah, I’m good wh that.’”</p><p class="">LeDuc’s journey to fdg a supportive figure skatg partner and wng gold at the natnal champnships 2019 hasn’t been an easy one. When they me out to their parents as gay at 18, they said their fay was attendg a tradnal evangelil church, so their reactn was, “We love you, but we need to change you.”</p><div class="remend-tersectn-ref" data-activy-map="remend-article-body-remend" data-ttid="remend-wrapper"></div><div class="remend-tersectn-ref" data-activy-map="remend-article-body-remend" data-ttid="remend-wrapper"></div><p class="">“At one pot, one of my fay members brought iends home om a church group, and they basilly tried to perform an exorcism on me, tried to st my mons out and were prayg on on all sis of me, tryg to remedy my, we lled , same-sex attractn,” LeDuc said.</p><p class="">They said their parents are now supportive and were acceptg when they me out as nonbary at 28. But the figure skatg world remas rigid s tradnal genr expectatns for athlet, LeDuc said, and that’s somethg they are tryg to help change.</p><p class="">LeDuc is volved an athlete mentorship program through the Uned Stat Olympic and Paralympic Commtee’s Athlete Advisory Council.</p><p class="">“We are now tryg to pass on that rmatn to the young and up-and-g skaters, so that they n be even better athlet, so that they n have even better experienc the sport and maybe they n avoid some of the obstacl that we all faced the sport, if they get this rmatn ahead of time,” they said.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="">An creasg number of athlet have e out as transgenr or nonbary recent years. Openly transgenr athlet peted for the first time Olympics history durg the Summer Gam. <a href=">New Zealand weightlifter Lrel Hubbard</a> peted the women’s super-heavyweight 87 kilogram-pl (192 pound-pl) tegory, BMX etyler Chelsea Wolfe traveled to Tokyo as an alternate on Team USA and nonbary Amerin skateboarr <a href=">Alana Smh peted</a> women’s street.</p><p class="">Canadian soccer player Qun beme the <a href=">first openly transgenr and nonbary athlete</a> to w an Olympic medal followg their team’s feat of Swen the women’s fal Augt.</p><p class="">Overall, a <a href=">rerd-breakg</a> <a href=">186 out LGBTQ athlet (at least) peted at the Summer Gam</a>, acrdg to the LGBTQ sports webse Outsports. <a href=">LGBTQ athlet</a>, or Team LGBTQ, as Outsports referred to them, won <a href=">33 medals</a>.</p><p class="">Cyd Zeigler, -founr of Outsports, said many of the teams for the Wter Gam are currently beg named, so the webse don’t have an ial tally of how many LGBTQ athlet are petg. </p><p class="">However, Zeigler said an email that he’s “nfint that the total will be more than double” what was the 2018 Wter Gam Pyeongchang, South Korea, where at least 15 out LGBTQ athlet peted.</p><p class="">LeDuc and Ca-Gribble will pete pairs short Thursday and pairs ee Saturday at the <a href=" target="_blank">U.S. Figure Skatg Champnships</a>.</p><div class="ad ad--text-alignment ad-ntaer boxleAd dn-prt" data-ttid="ad__ntaer"><div data-mps="te" data-slot="boxle" data-siz="[[[1000,1],[]],[[758,1],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[728,90],[360,360]]],[[0,0],[[300,250],[700,50],[5,5],[360,360]]]]" data-renr-on-view="te" data-targetg="{}" data-active-tab="te" data-offset-viewport="100" data-ttid="ad__ntaer__ner"></div></div><p class="endmark"><strong><em>Follow </em></strong><a href=" target="_blank"><strong><em>NBC Out</em></strong></a><strong><em> on </em></strong><a href=" target="_blank"><strong><em>Twter</em></strong></a><strong><em>, </em></strong><a href=" 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