Caitlyn Jenner is glittering in gold on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
The 66-year-old TV personality fronts the magazine's "Where Are They Now" issue donning a sparkling gold jumpsuit and the Olympic gold medal she won at the 1976 Olympic decathlon in Montreal. This marks first time Jenner has publicly worn her medal in 40 years (she reveals to the magazine she keeps it in her "nail drawer.")
In the issue, Jenner, who publicly came out as a trans woman in 2015, speaks on how the Olympic games allowed her to "withstand the pain" of gender dysphoria, something that wasn't talked about in the past.
"The decathlon was the perfect distraction," she says.
And even though the former athlete is proud of her achievement, she reveals she didn't feel a sense of accomplishment winning the games and setting a world record.
"What I’m dealing with now, this is about who you are as a human being. What did I do for the world in 1976, besides maybe getting a few people to exercise a little bit? I didn’t make a difference in the world," she says.
However, she does attribute her Olympic fame as a factor in becoming an advocate for the transgender community.
"If I had not won the Games, if I was not on the Wheaties box and I hadn’t become this, um, this . . . celebrity, would all of this have happened?” she asks. "Certainly life would have been different. The gender issues, I was never getting away from. But things would have been different. I would hope I would be doing some of the things I’m doing today, but certainly not on the same scale."
You can read the full interview on SportsIllustrated.com.
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