Which is why, had he been alive today, arguably the most flamboyant star ever to grace British sport would have been delighted that a new documentary film on his remarkable life and career has coincided with the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

It has also coincided with the first openly gay kiss seen on an Olympic stage, a happy indication of how things have moved on since Curry ruled the rinks in the more homophobic 1970s.

A true tale worth repeating which reflected the more prejudiced times we then lived in, is one I recounted here a few years back. In 1976, the year Curry won his gold medal in Innsbruck, I was editor of Sportsworld Magazine, then the official journal of the British Olympic Association. 

After Curry's breathtaking display I received a telephone call from a Melbourne radio station in the middle of the night.

"Hi," said an Aussie voice. "We've all been watching your guy John Curry win the Olympics. 

"Isn't he something? Understand you know him quite well." I concurred that indeed I did.

"Great. Look, mate, would you mind telling us a bit more about him - we're all keen to know. Can we go live with an interview now?" 

"No problem," I replied. 

"Okay," he told his listeners. "We've got Alan Hubbard, editor of Sportsworld magazine, live from London, who knows this Pommie skater John Curry we're all talking about. Tell me Alan, is he a poofter?"

I recall I quickly mumbled something about his sexual orientation being his own business. 

"Well," came the response. "He sure looks a poofter from here."

Thankfully, things have moved on since then - even in Australia.

Curry died in 1994 from an Aids-related illness. He was only 44, a lovely gentle soul who had brought a new dimension to skating, indeed to sport.

His balletic skating skills were sublime, he was Nureyev on ice.

Yet, wholly artistic as he was, physically and mentally he was as tough as old boots.

Now, James Erskine's superb documentary The Ice King offers the timely suggestion that Britain has not given Curry the credit he deserves for his achievements on ice, and for being the first man to marry the athleticism of skating with the artistry of dance, all while the Bolero was still a distant twinkle in the eyes of the adolescent Torvill and Dean.

Curry, who was "outed" by a German newspaper during the Innsbruck Olympics, had never disguised his homosexuality, but neither did he flaunt it.

Like Tonya Harding, whose film drama I Tonya was also released to catch the snowfall-out from Pyeongchang, Curry had a tormented childhood.

His father, who ran a successful engineering firm in Birmingham, flatly refused to let him take ballet lessons and loathed his obvious campness, but would accept his ice-skating because it was came within the confines of sport.

Although they had little time for one another, Curry was traumatised when his father committed suicide.

The Ice King is a somewhat tragic story, but at the same time an uplifting one because it is such a timely reminder of his brilliance.

Meantime, that kiss between openly-gay Team USA snowboarder Gus Kenworthy and his boyfriend Matthew Wilkas at Pyeongchang has received acclaim after it was candidly caught on camera and broadcast worldwide.

When slope-styler Kenworthy, competing with a broken rib, locked lips with Wilkas at Pyeongchang's Phoenix Snow Park the unwitting couple's moment was picked up by NBC TV cameras and reached millions around the world.

Kenworthy, although placing 12th in his final, has been championed by many observers, who celebrated the first televised gay kiss involving an Olympian at a Games. Wilkas was much more conservative in response to the osculation.

"It was the tiniest kiss in the world, I could've made out with him had I known," CNN reported him saying. 

"I think it's positive. I think it's great exposure, a great thing for our community, but I also partly think, 'what's the big deal?'

Indeed.

Mind you, I have to admit to a certain shock to the system when, with a small group of fellow scribes, I witnessed a "sporting" gay kiss back in the 1960s.

It happened backstage at Wembley after prolific world champion boxer Emile Griffith had beaten Britain's Brian Curvis. As we entered his dressing room we found Griffith locked in a passionate embrace, snogging with one of his cornermen. 

In those days it was unthinkable that any sporting hero could be gay, particularly a fighter.

It was not until decades later, shortly before his death in 2013 at the age of 77, that Griffifth felt able to "come out" in the most macho sport of all.

Thankfully today, gay pride without prejudice is now surely embedded in every sport's psyche.