Congratulations to Matthew Mitcham, an openly gay diver, for winning gold in the 10m platform in the Beijing Olympics. Article here (from last night).Diver Matthew Mitcham, the only openly gay male athlete in the Beijing Olympics, won gold in the 10m platform. He beat Chinese favorite Zhou Luxin by 4.8 points, preventing China from sweeping gold in diving events. Mitcham is the first Aussie to win diving gold since 1924, but that's not the only thing that makes him a trailblazer.
He is hardly the first gay athlete to compete but he is one of the first to be out while competing. American diver Greg Louganis did not share his orientation until his diving career was over. To Mitcham, he is just living his life as a gay man and as a diver, and there is nothing extraordinary about that:
“Being gay and diving are completely separate parts of my life. Of course there’s going to be crossover because some people have issues, but everyone I dive with has been so supportive."
Though he wants to be known as more than a gay man, the LGBT community is proud of their star. At OutSports, a sports Web site that focuses on the gay community, his win is front-page news. The Web site brings up a good question -- will NBC mention Mitcham's orientation during tonight's broadcast?
To Mitcham, that doesn't seem to matter. He has gold, and has reached his goals: "I’m happy with myself and where I am. I’m very happy with who I am and what I’ve done.”
UPDATE: NBC did not mention Mitcham's orientation, nor did they show his family and partner who were in the stands. NBC has made athletes' significant others a part of the coverage in the past, choosing to spotlight track athlete Sanya Richards' fiancee, a love triangle between French and Italian swimmers and Kerri Walsh's wedding ring debacle.
Here's a brief interview of him after winning the gold. His mom and boyfriend were by his side:
Posts
1 comment:
mbc did some good job reportin the olympics but did some horrible jobs at the same time, which kinda became the tradition for this station now. At one point it appears to be progressive and liberate and at other times you just wonder what the fuck happened.
I was royally pissed tonight after the closing ceremony was over because the LA local nbc news did a segment of "the real chinese". The dumbfucking gorilla looking anchor said "olympics look good on TV, if the some chinese even have one to watch." What kind of a fucking stupid opening is this. Then their "news crew" drove couple hundred miles into the mountain range, found a village of 400 people (reported by them), who happened to be farmers, and presented them as the real chinese. What kind of journalism is this shit. It is such an old style prapagenda that even the Americans probably think it is dumb. Just drive around the Comptons and USC neighborhood, or maybe travel to Arkansas and present those dumb fucks to the world as the REAL AMERICANS, people here won't be so happy about that either now would they.
Ok I need to stop ranting but that was just completely useless and tasteless.
Post a Comment