Get Gay Travel reports on day 5 of Gay Games VIII

En français / Yannick Agnel, médaillé olympiqe gay-friendly

Têtu.com évoque le numéro spécial "sport", en kiosque :


Il attire tous les regards. Surtout depuis sa victoire dimanche soir en relais avec ses collègues du 4 x 100 mètres, puis celle en individuel sur 200 mètres nage libre. Yannick Agnel, 20 ans, est sans conteste LA star française des Jeux olympiques de Londres. En une saison, le colosse nîmois (1,98 m, 81 kilos), est passé du statut d’espoir à celui de roi des bassins.

Mais avant même le début des JO, le beau nageur avait tapé dans l'œil de TÊTU. Yannick Agnel est en effet en interview dans le dernier numéro (juillet-août). Dans le cadre d’un vaste dossier sur les sportifs friendly, le jeune champion tricolore évoque l'ouverture d'esprit en équipe de France de natation (Frédéric Bousquet a fait la couv' de TÊTU en février 2010), une équipe où l’on n'hésite pas à s’amuser des clichés véhiculées sur la natation, à chambrer les camarades qui posent en sous-vêtements, une équipe où il n'y a aucun tabou.


Le nouveau phénomène de la natation française s’exprime également sur l’homosexualité dans le sport. «Ceux qui sont gênés par l’homosexualité n’ont pas compris grand-chose à la vie en général, déclare Yannick Agnel. Moi, je trouve ça tout à fait normal. Chacun a l’orientation sexuelle qu'il a. Je ne trouverais pas choquant qu'un nageur ou n'importe quel sportif puisse faire son coming out.»


Continuer à lire ICI.

Out to Swim in the middle of the Channel!

It's on now! Follow on Facebook HERE.

Out To Swim members will swim from Dover to Calais to raise money for Central London Samaritans 

24 June 2012 | By Joe Morgan in Gay Star News:
 

A gay and lesbian relay team will be swimming the 21 miles of the English Channel for charity this week.
Six members of British club Out To Swim will plunge into the 14 degree waters off the coast of England, swimming one by one for an hour at a time, before reaching Calais in France.

They will be doing this task in the aim of raising money for the Central London Samaritans, a charity that provides confidential emotional support for anyone experiencing feelings of distress or despair, which can lead to suicide.

All experienced swimmers, the six gay men and women have trained for months to be able to withstand the ice cold temperatures and marathon distance.

Keep reading HERE.

London swimmers to swim the Channel for charity

The swim has been postponed due to bad weather, but the plan is still on! 

Out To Swim members will swim from Dover to Calais to raise money for Central London Samaritans

24 June 2012 | By Joe Morgan in Gay Star News:

A gay and lesbian relay team will be swimming the 21 miles of the English Channel for charity this week.
Six members of British club Out To Swim will plunge into the 14 degree waters off the coast of England, swimming one by one for an hour at a time, before reaching Calais in France.

They will be doing this task in the aim of raising money for the Central London Samaritans, a charity that provides confidential emotional support for anyone experiencing feelings of distress or despair, which can lead to suicide.

All experienced swimmers, the six gay men and women have trained for months to be able to withstand the ice cold temperatures and marathon distance.

Keep reading HERE.

Sean Smith on making mainstream sport a little more LGBT

Win Chesson, Scott Jordan, David Spires and Sean Smith
after a relay at IGLA Championships in Iceland. 
(Photo Courtesy of Onesimo Demira).

From an interesting post by Our Group's Sean Smith, just back from IGLA 2012 in Reykjavik:

If gay athletes, including those at the elite level, don’t exist then how can you explain the popularity of LGBT sports organizations? They exist all over the world in different forms. I’ve been a critic in the past of the segmented LGBT category of sports competitions until I had the experience of competing in some. I have had the opportunity to compete at the OutGames in 2006, the International Gay and Lesbian Aquatic (IGLA) world championships in 2009 and most recently the IGLA world championships in Reykjavík, Iceland in May.

Obviously the Iceland competition I recently took part in is not the most competitive meet I’ve been to, but why was it so fulfilling? I asked some athletes that are in Omaha right now for US Olympic Trials and were also at IGLA in Iceland three weeks ago why they felt it was important enough to go to that meet. Their answer was simple. “It’s fun, it gives me a sense of community, and I love competing with my teammates!”

For me the unique ingredient to swimming at an IGLA meet is being able to feel whole and authentic. There is no segmented athlete self that is policing each action to cover or pass as safe or straight. All of my effort can go in to swimming and to enjoying the social aspects of the meet. I’ll admit, the social aspects which are obviously a much bigger piece of the experience these days.

Read in full HERE.

London Orcas brave the cold streets of Soho to promote coming pool party

M

 Details and tickets HERE.

A message from Gareth Johnson from the Out to Swim London swim club:

Well that was an interesting experience!

As part of our PR drive for the Out To Swim Pool Party 2012, our social rep Ming organised a Soho Speedo Splash!

It was the Sunday evening of the May Bank Holiday weekend, and at 19:00 a hardy group of eight OTS-ers assembled at Rupert Street. In the squad were Ming, Ian E, Gareth W, Andrejus L, Tommy T, Stephen L, Tristan G (our official photographer) and myself. It wasn't really until we were all there that it kind of hit me that it was only Ming and myself who had agreed to strip down to speedos, everyone else was keeping their OTS t-shirts (and jeans) safely on...

Despite the cold (like, seriously cold), we had a lot of fun and had a great reception from everyone as we wandered around Soho chatting to people and handing out flyers. We started with Rupert Street, moved on to The Yard, The Village, Admiral Duncan, Circa, The Edge, Candy Bar, Profile and Ku (Chinatown).

One of the best receptions we got was in Candy Bar which was having a busy night but all the women were really friendly and interested in what we were doing and the event we were promoting.

With our flyers all handed out we headed to Kopi Tiam (a nearby Malaysian restaurant) to warm up, eat some food, and share stories about our adventures that evening.

Paris Aquatique featured in Sensitif

Photos from the Aquafolies, a fun pool event in which FSGL and IGLA member club Paris Aquatique takes on teams from other FSGL clubs in synchro swimming and other activities, are featured in the latest issue of gay magazine Sensitif, along with a report on the performance of Paris Aquatique swimmings in the French national masters championships, from which the club brought back 15 medals.

Find the stories HERE.

Gay Games Ambassador Bruce Hayes inducted into Texas Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame

Congratulations to Gay Games Ambassador Bruce Hayes who was inducted yesterday into the Texas Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame. Here is his bio from the Hall of Fame website:

Born in Sarasota, Florida, and raised in San Antonio, Hayes was an outstanding Texas age-group swimmer, setting numerous TAGS records. He capped a successful high school career at Highland Park High School under Coach Mike Sorrells, winning a state championship in the 200 IM and 100 backstroke. He was a major force in UCLA’s 1982 NCAA championship, scoring more points than any other freshman at the meet. He competed for the United States at the 1982 World Championships; he won three U.S. national titles, seven medals at the 1983 World University Games and three golds at the 1983 Pan American Games. The highlight of his career came when he anchored the 4x200 free relay at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. His come-from-behind effort on the anchor leg won gold and set a new world record for the U.S., edging West Germany’s Michael Gross by .04 seconds and earning him the 1984 Phillips 66 Performance of the Year award. Hayes has continued swimming and is the holder of several Masters world records. He lives in New York City pursuing his career in public relations.

Sydney Wett Ones coach named New South Wales Coach of the Year

Congratulations to Danny Crowe, coach of the Sydney Wett Ones swim club, a member of FGG member organizations Team Sydney and IGLA, who has been named 2011 Coach of the Year by New South Wales Masters Swimming!

Out to Swim and the Gay Games

Out to Swim celebrates its 20th anniversary. Here's a very personal story of what it means to discover and particpate in the Gay Games and LGBT sport.

Boston swimmers say "It Gets Better"

Liquid Assets New England Swimming in Boston have made a video for the "It Gets Better" project.



View it below, and visit our "It Gets Better" page HERE.

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Congratulations to Team Auckland Masters Swimmers on their 20th anniversary!

We are seeing a slew of 20th and 25th anniversaries of LGBT sports groups, part of the community of sportspeople inspired by the Gay Games. Congratulations to our friends from IGLA member club Team Auckland Masters Swimming, whose history is recounted in this story from GayExpress.co.nz:

Team Auckland Masters Swimmers – one of New Zealand’s longest-running GLBT community groups – is turning the big 2 – 0 in January; that’s 20 years of swimming cozzies, chocolate fish and overseas trips! Group founder Ron Judd and early member Cynthia Borne met up with Hannah JV to pore over a few photos from the ’90s in preparation for their big anniversary.

[...]

Team Auckland Masters Swimmers (TAMS) got its start thanks to fresh-faced Ron Judd around 20 years ago when he decided to formalise a group of gay and lesbian swimmers who would want to compete at masters’ level (aged 25-105). 
TAMS started at Auckland’s Tepid Baths in September 1991 and was formalised in early 1992.

“I decided that we should formalise the group because I wanted some permanency with it,” says Ron. “I was into competing and at the time you had to belong to a New Zealand Masters’ Swimming club to compete. I was part of the Waterhole Masters’ Swimming club before, that but it was a group that was very family orientated; as a gay guy, it could be a little lonely. 
“I was aware there were a lot of gay guys out there swimming, so I had the idea to get a group together. There weren’t many gay community groups around at that time – you could go to gay bars, but that was kind of it. We were part of that rise of the gay community group – there are a lot of 20-year anniversaries coming up at the moment.”

Cynthia says, “These guys went to the second Gay Games, but they all went swimming with different groups. What Ron wanted was for all these lesbian and gay people who went to the games to be swimming under one name.”


[...]

“When we’d have these chocolate fish events, we would give out chocolate fish as prizes. It wasn’t an official event – it was the sort of event where if you came first, or last, or somebody liked your togs or your legs, you’d receive a chocolate fish. We would run these events like the ‘Pink Flamingo’ events they have at each Gay Games.”


Once the group had settled into a routine, swimmers worked towards travelling to New York for the Gay Games in 1994. There the team competed in events, as well as the Pink Flamingo, a Gay Games tradition that combines outrageous costumes, music, dance and synchronised swimming with humour and satire, to make for an exciting, fun and somewhat revealing evening.


“Going to the Gay Games for me was such an experience,” says Ron. “I can’t speak for the whole group that was there, but being totally immersed in this gay culture was a new thing for me and I was totally blown away.”


“For the 20th, we’re doing a swim meet on the weekend of Big Gay Out,” says Cynthia. “It will be competitive and non-competitive – it’s mainly a participation meet. We’re going to create a new cup for the event for a relay against Different Strokes from Wellington. We’re going to have a relay to decide who gets the cup each year. After the swim meet, we’re having an anniversary dinner.” 


Read the full interview HERE.
Visit the club's website HERE. 

En català / Els nedadors de les Panteres Grogues es despullen per un calendari

Amb l'arribada del 2012 són molts els calendaris que proliferen per il·lustrar els mesos que venen. Enguany, per primer cop, la secció de natació del Club Esportiu LGTB Panteres Grogues ha elaborat el seu propi calendari.

Hi trobareu 24 nedadors amb poca roba disposats a animar-vos des de gener a desembre. No és el primer equip esportiu que ho fa, però segurament serà un dels que més us alegrarà la vista.

Les fotos, elaborades per l’estudi fotogràfic Shoot 115 (www.shoot115.com), es van fer durant el mes d’octubre a la piscina on entrenen habitualment, les platges de Barcelona, Sant Feliu de Guíxols i Cabrils.

El calendari està a la venda al preu de 10 € i es pot adquirir a les llibreries:

• Cómplices, C/ Cervantes 4, Barcelona
• Antinous, C/Josep Anselm Clavé 6, Barcelona.

També es pot demanar per correu electrònic a natacio@panteresgrogues.cat. S’enviarà a domicilis particulars previ pagament per transferència.

Another Gay Games swimmer aiming for Olympic trials

In this report from Jeff Commings in Swimming World, we learn that another older Olympic candidate is also a Gay Games veteran:

PHOENIX, Arizona, November 14.

With less than four weeks until my taper meet – the short course meters Masters meet in Phoenix – I am starting to feel that twinge of excitement that comes with the impending arrival of the chance to swim fast.

This meet will be a great way to see how the additions to my training regimen have affected me in the past few months since qualifying for the Olympic Trials. When you are in your teens and 20s, changes to the way you train are usually easy to handle. But now that I am 37, I have been worried that the constant soreness is a sign that maybe I'm taking on more than I can handle.

My weekly session with JR Rosania have made me more aware of my strengths and weaknesses in the pool, but am I overloading my muscles? And how about those semi-regular workouts with Coley Stickels, the head coach of Phoenix Swim Club? My body hasn't endured this much breaststroke in a single workout since my days at the Olympic Training Center in the late 1990s.

It's only natural to have concerns about training progressions, especially on days when your coaches yells out times that you don't want to hear. Last week, I was the most sore I've been this season, but the times during sprint sets didn't reflect a body in turmoil. On Friday, I almost broke 27 seconds for a 50-yard breaststroke from a dive, something I have never done in Masters swimming. That was one of the highlights of the week.

Another highlight was watching the webcast of the Minnesota Grand Prix and seeing Brian Jacobson qualify for the Olympic Trials at the age of 37 in the 50 free. Yep, another 37-year-old has made the Olympic Trials. Brian is nine months older than me, so he now stands as the second-oldest male to qualify for Trials, and to be honest, I'm not upset that he's bumped me down to the third-oldest man in history to qualify. Steve West set the standard as the oldest qualifier when he made the 200 breast this summer at age 39.

Brian and I were on the national junior team in 1990 and 1991. Brian was a great swimmer then, and he's kept that going in Masters. In 2002, we raced together for the first time in 10 years at the Gay Games in Sydney, and I was amazed that he was still so fast. He broke the Masters world record in the 50 LCM breast in 2004, a record that I worked very hard to break two years later. Like me, Brian continues to get faster as he gets older. He was in the 50 free at the 2008 Trials, and wouldn't it be great to see him go under 23 seconds next year and beat all the teenagers in his heat?

Continue reading HERE.

Follow Jeff Commings on his road to the Olympic trials

Here is the first post from Jeff Commings new blog. Jeff has recently written his memoirs, Odd Man Out: An Autobiography: True Stories of a Gay Black Swimmer, and he's now a masters swimmer training for the Olympics!


I'd like to welcome all of you to my official blog! It's been a long time since I've blogged, but I'm sure it's just like riding a bike.

The goal of this blog is to log all my workouts in and out of the pool as I prepare for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials. As I mention in the subtitle of this blog, I will be 38 years old when I compete at Trials, so the workouts you see in this blog will be very different from what the typical Trials competitor will do. I hope these workouts inspire Masters swimmers and others to get in shape, stay in shape and reach goals you thought were impossible, just like the goal I had of competing in my third Olympic Trials.

A little background is required. I competed at the Olympic Swimming Trials in 1992 and 1996. Both experiences were horrific. In 1992, I was so nervous about competing that my body went into convulsions just before the start of my prelim race of the 100 breaststroke. In 1996, I was not well-prepared for the meet. This time, I'm going to swim for fun and soak in the experience. I qualified for next year's Olympic Trials at the Arizona Senior State Championships on July 9 with a 1:04.42 in the 100-meter breaststroke. The qualifying time is 1:04.69. I will be the oldest competitor in the event by about seven years. I have absolutely no designs on making the Olympic team. In order to do so, I will have to swim more than four seconds faster than I swam to qualify for the meet, and about two seconds faster than my all-time personal best, which I did in 1993.

My primary goal is to not get "DFL," or "Dead F------- Last." After a lengthy discussion with my coach, Mark Rankin, we thought it would be a nice goal to also swim under 1:04.

My workouts in the pool will not be too much different from what I have been doing for the past three years, though there will be an added emphasis on increasing leg strength with vertical kicking in the pool and more plyometric work at the gym.

If you have any questions about what you read here, please post a comment or write to me at jeffswim@aol.com. First workout posted tomorrow!

Boston's LANES swim club says "It Gets Better"

Liquid Assets New England Swimming in Boston have made a video for the "It Gets Better" project.

View it below, and visit our "It Gets Better" page HERE.

New blog by gay high school swimmer

From Outsports:

“Sam I Am” is a new blog written by Sam, a 16-year-old high school junior in Pennsylvania. In ninth grade he was on the school swim team, but he quit his sophomore season, feeling inadequate and lonely, which he chalks up to wrestling with his sexuality. Sam now intends to rejoin his swim team this winter, and is using his blog as a way to reach out, come out and tell his story.

Read more HERE.
Read Sam's blog HERE.

13 August 2011 / Stonewall Open Water Swim in New York

FGG member IGLA supports the Stonewall Swim, a fun, healthy, innovative fundraiser for the LGBT community of New York.

Our goal is to build tighter ties within our community while fostering greater self-confidence through sports and recreation.

The Stonewall Swim is a fundraiser for Stonewall Community Foundation, a major contributor to LGBTQ charities throughout NYC. Funds raised from the Stonewall Swim support Stonewall Community Foundation’s vital work in the LGBTQ community. These include The Stonewall Institute, a training and leadership development program for board, staff, members, and volunteers of LGBTQ organizations and projects; The Gene and John Athletic Fund which awards academic scholarships to athletes for continuing their education while pursuing athletics; and Out in Front NY, the Foundation’s exciting new initiative that cultivates and trains the next generation of board leaders for the LGBTQ community.

More info HERE.

Founding of IGLA a top moment in LGBT sports history

Federation of Gay Games Honorary Life Member Charlie Carson made the following contribution to the Outsports call for the top moments in LGBT sports history, and we think it's well worth sharing:

Coming late to this, but will add a couple of things specific to aquatics after a quick mention that I hope the founding of Cologne’s gay volleyball team — first organized gay team in Europe — should make the overall list.

First, what I consider “the moment” in aquatics. Gay Games I in 1982 spurred the formation of swim teams on the North American west coast, but the next time swimmers gathered for an open gay competition wasn’t until Gay Games II. We had already formed a contact network among swimmers that had come to the Games from around the world but 1986 was the first time most of us from Gay Games I had seen each other again.

At a meeting of team reps and other individuals in the stands at the Laney College pool in Oakland during Gay Games II we decided we enjoyed being back in the water and were having too much fun to wait four years to be together again. We planned the first of annual competitions at that meeting, looking forward to a day when those competitions would be held around the world. The San Diego group volunteered to host the first annual competition in March 1987.

That meet in 1987 was the first of the International Gay & Lesbian Aquatics (IGLA) championships that take place each year between the Gay Games. By the third IGLA championship in 1989 teams had formed in New York and Washington, D.C., and during the next decade dozens more swimming and water polo teams started in North America, Australia and Europe.

IGLA’s existence and its leaders have directly influenced the passage of nondiscrimination clauses in aquatics organization bylaws. This is not something the Federation of Gay Games or Gay Games host committees could dedicate themselves to — it takes an organization specific to aquatics to network with the national governing bodies in a regular ongoing basis to achieve such goals.

IGLA team membership is now in the thousands, ranging from beginners to gold medal Olympians, with championships held in four sports at numerous world class aquatic centers, including Olympic facilities. And it bears mention that the many swimming records set and silliness of the Pink Flamingo event have been positive eye-openers among local mainstream aquatics officials wherever the IGLA championships have been held.

As I write, IGLA XIX is taking place in Honolulu with 2012′s IGLA XX set for Reykjavik. Gay aquatics now happens every day all the time around the world, and that can be directly traced back to the 1986 meeting when we decided to take our sports beyond the Gay Games.

Second, I hope it’s being acknowledged that Bruce Hayes was the first Olympic gold medal participant at the Gay Games, at Vancouver in 1990. Numerous Olympians have come out and joined us since, but Bruce was the first. Bruce received much national U.S. television and press attention when he promoted Gay Games IV in New York, but what I particularly like about his story is Bruce’s regular participation ever since at the Gay Games, IGLA championships and regional gay swimming meets. It’s not been a one-time thing, nor tied into personal publicity efforts — he enjoys the camaraderie and exercise on the gay teams, all the better to admire him for his place as a trailblazer in LGBT sport history.

And while I’m at it, Michael Mealiffe’s two masters world records in the 50 and 100 m. butterfly at 1990′s Gay Games III in Vancouver showed we weren’t just kidding around.

From the fantastic foto files of Shamey Cramer:

Thanks to Shamey Cramer for sharing this photo from Gay Games I.

Here's a photo of swimmers from the Swimming 200 Medley relay Gold: Los Angeles Silver: Los Angeles (Beverly Hills) Bronze: San Francisco. Future WH2O swimmers include (clockwise sitting above the #1 on the blocks): Co-founders Richard Hunter, Frank M., Chris Van Skoyck, Dan Phelan, Mark Vartanian, Mauro Bordovsky and Ric Boner.