Team GB's Kirsty Gilmour celebrates her Olympic badminton singles victory at the Porte de La Chapelle Arena on Monday. | Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Across five tournaments, featuring 173 competitors from 49 nations, Kirsty Gilmour is flying the rainbow flag solo in badminton at the Olympics this year.

But the British athlete is more than happy to talk about the joy she gets from being part of Team LGBTQ.

Gilmour is competing at her third Games but this is her first since coming out publicly as gay in a podcast interview in November 2021.

There is a Pride flag in her Instagram bio, which also records that her pronouns are she/her and they/them.

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On Monday morning in Paris, the 30-year-old from Glasgow began her singles challenge with a comfortable two-set victory over Keisha Fatimah Azzahra of Azerbaijan.

Afterwards, she was asked what it meant to her to be among at least 191 publicly out athletes, which is a record number for an Olympics.

“I’m super proud,” Gilmour told Sportsbeat. “Being the only out badminton player was an accident — I didn’t mean it!

“To be your whole self, in public, is first of all a privilege and second of all, necessary. You’re laid bare out on that court, you’re super vulnerable and aiming for your dreams, to be cheesy about it.

“You have to be all of yourself. For me personally to hide a part would not be performance-enhancing. I’m proud to be out.”

Records collated by historian Tony Scupham-Bilton show Gilmour is the sixth badminton player to have competed at the Olympics who is known to be LGBTQ.

The previous five include Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl of Denmark, who teamed up to win silver in the women’s doubles at Rio 2016. After those Games, they went public about being in a relationship together.

The other three known LGBTQ players were also women. Gina Gomez was part of Team USA at Atlanta 1996; Thailand’s Sujira Ekmongkolpaisarn competed at Sydney 2000; and Eefje Muskens of the Netherlands was out during Rio 2016.

Gilmour, ranked 24th in the world, must beat China’s He Bingjiao in her next Group N match on Tuesday evening if she is to advance through to the round of 16.

It’s a tough task ahead. The two players faced off just last month in the Indonesian Open, when world no 8 He emerged victorious, her fourth win in a row over Gilmour.

“We’ve had some really close matches in the past,” the Scot told the Daily Record. “I’ve taken a few wins and she’s won more recently.

“I’m just really looking forward to it and looking at it as a really positive opportunity to show off and play some good badminton.”