Matthew Mitcham Speaks Out on Being Gay

According to a post on outsports.com:

Matthew Mitcham, the gay Australian diver who made Olympic history, says he was surprised to be the only out male among the more than 10,000 Olympic athletes during the Beijing Games. He spoke out this week in his first press conference since leaving Beijing about his status, his vacation and the future.

“It’s a little bit sad I think, because statistically there should be a lot more but, you know what, it’s each to one’s own. I’m not going to pressure anybody else to come out of the closet because it’s their own choice. But I’m proud to be there, proud to be that one, that lots of other people can look up to.”

Matthew Mitcham is Diving for More Gold

In spite of the difficulties he faced, Matthew Mitcham came out of the closet before diving his way to gold stardom at the Beijing Olympics. Now that its over, the gold medalist is looking to cash in on more gold.

Mitcham, along with his partner, Lachlan Fletcher is due to return to Syndey this weekend after a six-week European vacation.  Among is first order of business will be meeting with David Flaskas, his new manager, and the man who helped turn Ian Thorpe into a multimillionaire.

While the swimmer’s like Stephanie Rice and Michael Phelps have landed multi-million dollar endorsement contracts, Mitcham has yet to secure a major deal, amongst a great deal of speculation that his sexuality has held him back.

Flaskas however says he is securely confident his new client will be a “significant earner”, but wouldn’t directly answer questions on whether Mitcham would be a millionaire in a year.

Mitcham appeared on the cover of the latest issue of the gay magazine, DNA, but still has notgiven any post-olympic interviews.

NBC Apologizes for Homophobic Oversight

It looks as though NBC has caught enough flack for not giving Olympic gold medalist Matthew Mitcham proper coverage. They decided Wednesday that an apology was in order.

The president of NBC Olympics, Gary Zenkel, issued a statement to AfterElton.com:

“We regret that we missed the opportunity to tell Matthew Mitcham’s story. We apologize for this unintentional omission.”

Earlier this week, Greg Hughes, an NBC Sports spokesperson told AfterElton.com’s editor Michael Jenson the network was not aware of the controversy over the lack of coverage. Hughes also stated,

“We don’t discuss an athlete’s sexual orientation.”

The Walk-In Closet: Homsexuality in Sports

Competing this year in Bejing are 10,708 athletes. Only 10 are openly gay and only one of them, Matthew Mitcham, is male.

Statistically, the percentage given in the Western world amongst a random sample is between 3 and 10%, with most people favoring a figure of around 5% or one in 20.

10 of 10,708 is clearly much lower than any of these. It works out at around 0.09%, a far lower percentage than any serious study would suggest. Most figures would predict the number of gay athletes to be above 500, so why is it only 10? Likewise, why has only one top flight English football player, Justin Fashanu, come out as gay?

There are a number of theories, some suggesting that homosexuality is less prevalent amongst top-class athletes than other professions, but most believe that athletes would prefer not to “come out”.

Particularly in team sports, gay athletes fear that the interaction between themselves and other competitors would be weakened if he/she was openly gay. For example, Graeme le Saux, a former Chelsea and England footballer who was not gay, but was widely believed to be, felt that he was treated differently by team-mates and opponents as a result of his alleged homosexuality.

Read the rest at bleacherreport.com.

Mitcham Gives GLBT Athletes Cause to Celebrate

A cheerful and unintentional smack in the face to the repressive Chinese regime and to homophobia in sports, out gay diver Matthew Mitcham won the gold medal in 10-meter platform diving in Bejing today. The Sydney Herald Sun included mention of Mitcham’s being the first out gay gold medalist in Olympic history. The Sydney Morning Herald also did an honest feature on him. The Advocate did a cover feature on him. Gay paper the Sydney Star Observer posted a short article about his success.

Read more at cyclizen.blogspot.com.

UPDATE:

It takes a lot for me to weep while watching sports, but that’s how moving his gold-medal diving performance was Saturday in Beijing.

I teared up when he first saw the score from his final five and looked on in disbelief. Then again when a female friend ran up to him backstage at the Water Cube, hugged him and said, “Matthew, you just won the Olympics!” Mitcham looked stunned, and started to sob. The tears flowed later when I watched the medal ceremony and saw someone who had conquered a lot in his 20 years looking like the happiest person on Earth. An openly gay male athlete won an Olympic gold medal. With his boyfriend cheering in the stands. Wow!

By winning the gold medal in the men’s 10-meter platform diving, Mitcham struck a golden blow for gay people everywhere who’ve been told they’re flawed or not good enough, especially in the athletic arena. For all the gay men who have been called weak, sissies, pansies, too emotional, not tough enough to compete in sports, that final dive was for you. Mitcham helped to shatter those stereotypes and brought me to tears thinking about what was possible.

Read more of this at outsports.com.

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