NBC gets coverage of Matthew Mitcham's sexual orientation mostly right the second time around

Diving tears and diving smiles

We're more than a little sad that our friend Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham won't be taking home another Olympic medal. He did great work and gave it his all, living up to ouIr motto of Participation, Inclusion, and Personal Best, and to the motto "Once an Olympian, always an Olympian".

We know Matthew will continue to do great things and be a force for joy and progress in the world, and we are proud to have him by our side as we work toward equality in and through sport.

We take some consolation that the Chinese sweep was prevented by bronze medal winner Tom Daley and by gold medal winner David Boudia. We are pleased that the work of Gay Games Ambassador Greg Louganis has a claim to some of that success, having served as mentor to the US diving team in London.

Matthew Mitcham a model for an athlete coming out

From Jim Buzinski's look at Matthew Mitcham's coming out and how things have changed since 2008:

Four years later, things are a different, but in a positive way. In London, it's Mitcham diving and not his sexual orientation that is the focus. He has built a template for how someone should come out.

In reading coverage of Mitcham in the lead-up to competing Friday in London, I was struck by how his sexuality is often not mentioned - he is Matthew Mitcham, diver, not Matthew Mitcham, gay diver. That's progress.

It's not as if Mitcham tries to hide who he is. He is a spokesman for gay marriage in Australia, posing for an "I Do" campaign in a magazine. He was the grand marshal of Sydney's famous gay Mardi Gras parade. In 2010, he was named a Gay Games ambassador and did more than just lend his name. He came to Cologne, Germany, and participated in the Opening Ceremonies and hung out with other athletes; he was utterly charming and everyone wanted their picture taken with him and he happily obliged.

Read in full

#GOMATTGO

Our friend and Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham is diving in the Olympic 10m platform semifinals.

On behalf of the Gay Games family we wish  him luck and assure him our friendship and support. However you dive, you're a great guy!

Matthew Mitcham at Olympic village

You've seen it everywhere by now, but just in case... Matthew Mitcham does something perhaps dangerous, maybe silly, but certainly fun, at the London 2012 athletes village.

Our message of support to Matthew Mitcham, with an invitation to Pride House... and Gay Games 9

http://pridehouse.gaygames.org
Join us at Pride House 2012!

At announcement of Australian OIympic team, "The only outward sign of [Matthew Mitcham's] out-of-the-pool personality was a small 'Federation of Gay Games' stickpin stuck over his left side pocket"

A profile of Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham ahead of the Olympics:

[...]

Defending his Olympic crown - the 10-meter platform title he snatched with his flawless final attempt in Beijing four years ago to deny China a sweep of the diving gold medals - is what 2012 is all about for him, Mitcham has repeated in countless interviews.

Beijing was something of a coming out parade for him. He generated plenty of commentary for being an openly gay athlete, but even more for a high-stakes final dive that ranked among the best in Olympic history.

Dressed neatly in a dark team polo shirt and long black trousers, Mitcham told The Associated Press that London will be different.

For a start, all the experiences around the competition won't be new. Besides, he's more likely to be recognized as the defending champion, not as the gay diver from Australia.

[...]

He's such a big part of the team that Australia head coach Hui Tong accepted that the regular selection criteria was tweaked to allow Mitcham to concentrate on returning to full fitness rather than competing.

"His presence can make a big splash, bring a lot of respect," Hui said. "He's individually important to the whole team - means everybody's got a hope.

"He's a great competitor. He can rise to the occasion, in that moment. That's his greatest strength. He needs to concentrate on being fit, now."

[...]

At Australia's team announcement last month, Mitcham was conscious of the occasion and wanted to focus only on being a member of the squad. He didn't want to get too deeply into discussions about being a role model for gay athletes, or any issues outside of diving. The only outward sign of his out-of-the-pool personality was a small "Federation of Gay Games" stickpin stuck over his left side pocket.

To get a better insight into Mitcham as a person, go to Facebook, where he keeps friends and fans up-to-date and is a vocal campaigner for various causes.

He is honest, and he's out loud and proud.

[|...]

Read in full HERE.

Matthew Mitcham one of 24 celebs promoting marriage equality in Marie Claire Australia

The Australian edition of Marie Claire magazine has a feature promoting marriage equality, currently a hot top in the country. Among the personalities in their special feature is Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham. We also note the presence of rugby star David Pocock.

Rugby star David Pocock

Matthew Mitcham in action

From Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham: "International co-operation in motion. Canada, Brazil, Australia and Mexico in Fort Lauderdale, Florida." The US Diving Grand Prix took place there earlier this month.

Matthew Mitcham officially selected for Olympics

We are delighted to learn that Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham has been selected for the Australian team for the 2012 Olympics. Despite outstanding performance at the Olympic trials, he underperformed at the last Grand Prix event, meaning his qualification was not automatic, and depended on a decision from Diving Australia which has just been announced.

Good luck to Matthew in London!

Matthew Mitcham on his role as an advocate

The Sydney Morning Herald looks at Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham's upcoming second Olympic adventure, with a focus on his status as an advocate:

DIVER Matthew Mitcham looks forward to the day when his sexuality will be of as little interest as the colour of a person's hair, their eyes or even gender in day-to-day life, let alone in the Olympic Games, in which he will compete this year as a defending gold medallist in London.

But Mitcham, who won the 10-metre platform event at the 2008 Beijing Games shortly after revealing he was gay, realises that day is some time away - and that it won't arrive before the start of the London Olympics, which yesterday ticked under the ''100 days to go'' mark.

Hence, as he prepares to defend his Olympic title and live up to the expectations on him, Mitcham is still willing to carry the added weight of interest in his advocacy of gay rights."I certainly don't see it as a burden,'' Mitcham told the Herald yesterday after training in Sydney. I never did, especially with how much attention the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered] cause has been getting lately with marriage equality … and with how few openly gay sports stars there are around at the moment. I don't mind attention being put on it. Ideally I would like one day for sexuality to be as unimportant and uninteresting as hair colour, or eye colour or even just gender in general. One day it will get to that. But until it is easy for sports people to come out without fear of persecution or fear of lost sponsorship income and stuff like that, or fear of being comfortable in the team environment, I don't mind attention being brought to my sexuality in the hope that it might make other people feel more comfortable … in being comfortable enough about who they are in their sporting environment."

Keep reading HERE.

18 April 2012 / Meet Matthew Mitcham and other London-bound Australian athletes

Wednesday 18 April marks 100 days until the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The Australian Olympic Committee will be holding several events around the country to mark the occasion (#100days).

As well as the official media conference at the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre and the Kookaburras with school kids in Perth, 11 Olympic hopefuls will be at two Fitness First gyms in the Sydney CBD.

Beijing Olympic medallists Matthew Mitcham, Ken Wallace and Melissa Wu will be just some of the athletes to meet and greet fans and talk about their London preparations. Three stars from the recent Olympic swimming trials - Daniel Tranter and Daniel Arnamhart - will also be there to celebrate the milestone to their first Olympic Games.

Congratulations to Matthew Mitcham on his great performance at Olympic trials!

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Matthew Mitcham hopes he's sounded an Olympic-sized warning with a perfect dive at Australia's nomination trials for the London Games.

Mitcham scored perfect 10s from seven judges on dive five in the 10m platform final in Adelaide on Wednesday.

"It's nice to be back," said Mitcham, the reigning Olympic champion.

Keep reading HERE.

Matthew Mitcham on the road to London

A video from the New South Wales Institute of Sport

Greg Louganis interview on his career, his support for the Gay Games, and what's coming up next

Here are a few extracts from a great interview by Laurence Watts in PinkNews:

He won his first Olympic medal at the age of 16. Eight years later he became the first man in 56 years to win two diving golds at the same Olympics. Four years after that, in Seoul, he added two more gold medals to his haul, despite famously hitting his head on the springboard during qualifying. He came out at the 1994 Gay Games. Laurence Watts meets Greg Louganis.

[...]

“For a while, between eight and twelve-years old, I did all three: diving, acrobatics and gymnastics. But back then gymnastics wasn’t done on sprung floors and the dancing took place on concrete. By the time I was twelve my doctor said I had to give up acrobatics and gymnastics because I had bad knees. From then on I concentrated on diving, still with a desire to one day make the Olympics. After a year, I was world champion for my age group. By the time I was sixteen I’d made the US Olympic team.”

It was at his first Olympics, at the age of sixteen, that Greg won a silver medal in the 10m-platform event. For many athletes an Olympic silver medal is the crowning achievement of their career. Not so for Louganis. His Olympic career was however substantially hindered four years later, when President Carter decided America would boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

[...]

It was while appearing in New York in the play ‘Jeffrey’ that Louganis was approached by Kile Ozier to record a message for the opening ceremony of 1994’s Gay Games. Louganis, who had long been out to his friends and family, decided it was time to make a public announcement and agreed.

“I’d never been open about my sexuality with the media before,” he tells me. “If I’d discussed my sexuality while diving I would have been known as ‘the gay diver’. The US media would have jumped on it. They love labels. I always wanted the focus to be on my diving, which is why I kept my sexuality to myself.”

Regardless, I put it to Greg that he would still have won the medals he did whether he’d been out or not.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I had a tough time making the teams. Although I usually won the titles, there were a lot of National Championships where I came in second. Diving is definitely one of the more objective sports because in competition they always knock off the highest and lowest scores, but homophobia ran pretty deep in the sport at the time.”

Louganis had another secret he wanted to be free of as well: six months before the 1988 Olympics he’d tested positive for HIV. He’d kept the diagnosis secret for a simple reason: the Korean authorities wouldn’t have let him in for the Olympics had they known his status. Greg knew this very well. He had wanted to share his Olympic experience with his friend, Ryan White, but White was denied a Korean visa on the grounds that he was HIV positive.

[...]

These days however, Greg’s name is being mentioned in the same breath as that of a much younger diver. In May 2008, shortly before the Beijing Olympics, Matthew Mitcham announced he was gay in an interview with Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. When did Greg first hear about Matthew?

“The first I heard was friends asking me if I’d seen the story,” he answers. “By the time he reached Beijing he was constantly being asked about me and vice versa. It was easy for me: I was at home so I could just not answer the phone. He was at the Olympics. There was no avoiding it. I understand why people make the comparison, but it’s really not fair on either of us. He’s his own person and that’s something I really tried to convey to him when I met him recently. He’s doing great. He’s just got to believe in himself and not worry about the other stuff.”

Like me, Greg watched on television as Matthew won Olympic gold in Beijing’s 10m-platform event. I ask him if his own wins flashed back at that moment?

“It wasn’t a flashback,” he tells me. “I just knew what he was going through. It was unfortunate that NBC’s commentary here in America was so distracting. Matthew was the only openly gay athlete competing in Beijing, but NBC ignored the wider story and referred to Matthew’s partner as his ‘friend.’ I have to admit my appreciation of the moment was overshadowed by my annoyance with what appeared to be censorship by NBC.”

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Matthew Mitcham performs well at Olympic warm-up event

From the Sydney Morning Herald's report on Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham's performance at a test event at the diving pool to be used at the 2012 Olympics:

Matthew Mitcham has taken a shine to the diving venue for the London Olympics after coming to grips with its quirks.

The Beijing champion in the 10m showed that he would be a contender at the London Games by impressing in qualifying at the test event.

In only his second international competition in ten months, he was fourth on 498.80 points and within sight of Chinese pace-setter Lin Yue (519.80).


He said his first competitive outing at the Olympic aquatics centre was a major confidence booster some five months out from the main event.

"I exceeded my expectations which is nice," he said.

"I was expecting to come like 15th so to come fourth after expecting 15th is a massive surprise to me."

Mitcham, who has had a horrible run with injuries over the past 18 months, said it had taken him time to adapt to the Olympic venue this week.

"I have been trying to adjust to the pool, there are a few different things to get used too," he said.

Keep reading HERE.

Matthew Mitcham one of four covers for Gay Times anniversary issue

Better late than never? An oldish story, but a good one!

It is great that among the four icons on this issue is an athlete, Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham, as reported in the Pink Paper:

GT magazine marks its landmark 400th issue with four celebratory covers featuring iconic gay men – sportsman Matthew Mitcham, actor Sir Ian McKellen and singer Joe McElderry – and the world's most famous female gay icon, Lady Gaga.

The issue celebrates 37 years of GT (Gay Times) from its humble beginnings in 1974 as HIM Magazine, the UK’s first newsstand title for gay men.

The issue features the great and the good of 37 years of our collective ‘Gay Times’ including Matthew Mitcham, Sir Ian McKellen, Joe McElderry, Will Young, Matt Lucas, Brian Dowling, Paul O’Grady, Gok Wan, Chris Bryant MP, Mike Mills, Nick Bowles MP, Rikki Beadle-Blair, Jonathan Harvey, Scott Mills, John Barrowman and Patrick Wolf.

Keep reading HERE.

Matthew Mitcham coming to Leeds

As many have been reporting (including the Yorkshire Evening News), the Australians are coming to Leeds:

Divers from Down Under are the latest Olympic stars to reveal they will set up camp in Leeds.

On Australia Day, it has been announced that around nine Aussie divers will be training at the Aquatics Centre at the John Charles Centre for Sport in July, before heading to London for the 2012 Games.

The team is likely to include reigning Olympic 10-metre champion Matthew Mitcham, along with Alexandra Croak – who made history in 2010 by becoming the first Australian to win gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in two different sports.

Re-united at Midsumma

Gay Games Ambassadors Blake Skjellerup and Matthew Mitcham met for the first time after the launch dinner last September where they were welcomed by fellow Ambassador Michelle Ferris. Blake is now based in Melbourne, so it was natural that he paid a visit to Matthew, who was present at the Telstra stand at the Midsumma fair day.

Great photos of Matt Mitcham

Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham has done a series of photos for his sponsor, including some with hiphop dancer Chris Sackett. Think of it as your Christmas present...
View all the photos, including solo shots of Matt, on their Facebook page HERE.