France s Dimitri Pavad represented his home country in a big way after coming out as gay just days following his fourth-place finish in mens long jump at the Paralympics in Paris .

Pavad, who won a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games, returned to the mens long jump T64 classification final on Wednesday, where he was just .06 meters short of a podium finish and earning a bronze medal in the competition.

Later, on Saturday, he took to Instagram and shared a photo of himself smiling while holding rainbow-colored interlocking male gender symbols in a nod to announcing his coming out in the posts caption.

Another fight awaits me now, and I was impatiently waiting for this moment. Here I am today, ready once again to face, overcome and move forward without taking into account what others may say or think of me, wrote Pavad, according to a Google translation from French to English.

He continued, Yes, I am SMALL, MIXED-RACE, ONE-LEGGED, and to add another layer, GAY!!!!!! The person I am, and like others, have never had to make a choice, so stop with your pitiful speeches and your judgments without reasoning because you will never change the world.