PHOENIX — The LGBTQIA+ community will be a focal point during the Paris Olympics, which officially kick off with Friday’s opening ceremony. “This will be the gayest Olympics ever,” said Cyd Zeigler, a Los Angeles-based journalist who co-founded Outsports, a popular sports news destination. His publication, which covers the intersection of sports and LGBTQIA+ issues in amateur and professional sports, reported in 2021 that at least 186 athletes in the Tokyo Olympics were publicly out, by far the most ever recorded. That count included athletes who were openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer or nonbinary. It was more than triple the number who participated at the 2016 Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro, Outsports reported.