Miami Herald profile of Matthew Mitcham

From a profile of Matthew Mitcham in the Miami Herald, which uses Matthew's story to speak more generally about homophobia in sport (and we wish our best to Matthew, who had to withdraw from the finals due to a sore abdominal muscle, for a prompt return to competition in full form):

Mitcham would love to see the day when being a gay athlete isn’t a story, but knows that men’s sports remains one of the last bastions of archaic notions of masculinity.

“Fortunately, Australia is a very open society,” he said. “A lot of the prejudice comes from environmental and religious factors. If God created us all in his image why would he create someone he would hate?”

Mitcham, 23, wants to talk about his identity so that others might be as comfortable in their skin as he is in his. He’s proud to be a role model, because his story is an encouraging one.

Positive response

He came out before the 2008 Olympics when he told the Sydney Morning Herald that he lived with his partner, Lachlan Fletcher. He was the only openly gay male athlete at the Beijing Games, where 11,000 athletes competed.

And the response was?

“Absolutely positive,” Mitcham said. “It’s part of my own ethical and moral beliefs to be an honest person. I accepted who I was. When you’re hiding something people sense it as a weakness.”

Mitcham applied for and received a travel grant from the Johnson & Johnson Athlete Family Support Program to have Lachlan attend the Olympics.

“I wasn’t going to treat my partner like he didn’t exist,” Mitcham said. “I decided I wanted Australians to know who they were supporting. I’m glad I did.”

At the Olympics, Mitcham went into the final dive of the final event trailing China’s Zhou Luxin by 34 points.

“China had won seven golds and they were celebrating their eighth already,” he said. “I was thinking silver for myself.”

But on his final dive, Mitcham earned four perfect 10s and scored a record 112.10 points. He beat Zhou by 4.8 points.

NBC cut away from the coverage when a jubilant Mitcham ran into the stands and kissed his mother and Fletcher. NBC was criticized for not showing Mitcham’s embraces when the network wasn’t hesitant to show those of heterosexual athletes. NBC said it was not an intentional slight but later said, “We regret that we missed the opportunity to tell Matthew Mitcham’s story.”

Read in full HERE.