If you don’t want to represent your country, stay home from the Olympics.

That’s the message that ungrateful athletes need to hear, after they tore into America in front of the international press.

Freestyle skier Hunter Hess said that it “brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now.” Teammate Chris Lillis chimed in that he was “heartbroken about what’s happening in the United States.”

Trump called Hess “a real Loser,” and it’s hard to disagree.

Team USA figure skater Amber Glenn also waded into politics, claiming that LGBTQ+ people were having a difficult time under Trump.

Someone forgot to tell Scott Bessent at Treasury, or Ambassador Ric Grenell.

Her comments were as pointless as the hatred expressed four years ago by figure skater Adam Rippon, who picked a fight with then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence had been fully supportive of Team USA, but Rippon attacked him anyway. 

It was an unprovoked attack that suggested more about Rippon’s likely anti-Christian prejudices against Pence than about any feelings the VP had about gays. 

Sadly, the spectacle of self-hatred has almost become a ritual at the Olympics.

It’s not enough that a hostile European audiences booed Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha; we have members of Team USA booing from within, too.

And for no other reason than partisan politics, looking for an excuse and an audience.

Blame the journalists, too, who persist in asking political questions at sporting events.

We saw it at the Australian Open last month, and now at the Winter Games in Milan.

But that’s all the more reason competitors need to be prepared to say: “No politics. Next question.”

Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. 

Clay Travis, founder of the OutKick sports website, noted on X that “the very act of asking American athletes political questions at the Olympics isn’t about the athlete actually addressing important issues, it’s left wing sports media reporters using the athletes as a vessel to spread the reporter’s political opinions.”

He later added: “It would be like [OutKick] sending a reporter to the Olympics and asking every athlete, ‘How awesome do you think President Trump is?’ And then only reporting the answer when someone said he was awesome. 

“That’s not journalism, it’s just laundering my opinion through an athlete’s.”

Many former Olympians spoke up in defense of the country, and expressed their gratitude for having represented the USA, all politics aside.

And all Americans, regardless of politics, felt the pain of brave Lindsey Vonn, whose career ended in injury Sunday.

Everyone understands that athletes don’t represent political parties or politicians, whatever their private views may be.

And everyone respects their right to express those views, if they want to do so.

Just don’t trash the flag on your uniform while you are overseas. You are supposed to be a role model and an ambassador.

Do your best to win. Or give someone else — someone who’s proud to be an American — the chance to compete.