It’s Friday…






This is a picture of Matthew Mitcham, an Australian diver, who won a gold medal in Beijing…denying the Chinese a sweep of all eight diving gold medals. You can read his story here.



One of the interesting things about Matt, aside from the fact that he is an amazing diver, is that he is/was the only openly gay athelete at the Olympics this year. His mother and his partner were in the stands watching him compete.



The courage it takes to be open about your orientation is incredible and to do it in the sports world, where people tend not to be as open-minded as we would like them to be…takes more courage than most atheletes have.



I applaud Mr. Mitcham for both his awesome performance in winning the gold and his overwhelming courage in being honest to himself and the world about who he loves. Best of luck in the future.



9 Responses “It’s Friday…”

  1. Celeste says:

    I didn’t stay up to watch much of the Olympics but the diving that I saw was just amazing. One of the Australian blogs I read had a link to a video of Mitcham’s dives. Besides having a lovely body for us to look at, he is a wonderful diver to watch.

  2. T.A.Chase says:

    He is cute, Emmy. 🙂

    For me personally, what upset me the most isn’t that they didn’t mention he was gay. Personally, I don’t care about any of the atheletes’ personal lives. just as I’m sure they aren’t interested in mine. I didn’t need to know all about the love triangle between the French and Italians swimmers…or about anyone else’s lives.

    What bothers me is simply that they never showed his family in the stands. We got to see Phelps’ mom every single race he swam..and most every other athelete (when they were competing) we got shots of their parents in the stands. Why couldn’t they have shown them? Or mentioned that his mother and partner were there?

    They didn’t need to make a big deal about him being gay, but if you’re going to show everyone else’s family and talk about their personal lives, then don’t skip him. Since I didn’t see his dives during the actual Olympics, I don’t know if they mentioned the rough spot he went through in his life before he re-dedicated himself to diving. Why not mention that if they didn’t want to talk about him being gay?

    Nobody jumped when Michael Phelps won 8 golds and said “yay, straight boy did amazing!”

    This made me lol…because it would be hilarious if someone did that. 🙂

  3. emmyjag says:

    Mitcham is too cute for words. Really. He dives beautifully and deserved his gold. It was a pleasure to perv on him *g*.

    I just don’t get what whom a person oofs at home has anything to do with the Olympics. If everyone wants equality, everyone has to treat each other equally. Nobody jumped when Michael Phelps won 8 golds and said “yay, straight boy did amazing!” Why single Mitcham out as a gay person?

    By highlighting the accomplishments of gay people, rather than just people, you perpetuate the perception that the GLBT community is separate and different, when the opposite is true. We’re all just humans.

    /bleeding on your blog, lolz.

    ps: omg this guy is hawt. just…yummmm

  4. Melissa Bradley says:

    I thought Matt’s story was really inspiring and shame on NBC for ignoring it. The network had a chance to show this country something truly wonderful and they dropped the ball. Big time.

    Here’s to a great weekend with lots of fun and the start of school!!!

  5. T.A.Chase says:

    Valerie,

    It’s true. The networks will only mention someone’s orientation if it creates publicity for the network (not the person they’re talking about). It’s a shame.

    Good for your brother-in-law and his organization.

    I came late to the discussion…lol..or I would have sent in emails as well. Though I might send one in just on principal.

    I think the world we live in is big enough to accept everyone, no matter what makes them unique.

  6. Valerie says:

    It really angered me that after NBC insisted on mentioning and interviewing most of the other families and friends they completely ignored his. My brother in law, who is gay, was so insensed that he and his organization sent several emails to other orgaizations for Gay Rights. They all sent thousands of emails to NBC, which is probably what prompted the apology, although i don’t see them changing their behavior anytime soon. I think the only time you will see a persons sexual orientation announced on network TV is when they can make a scandal out of it.

  7. T.A.Chase says:

    Thanks, ladies. I hope you have a great weekend as well.

    Joy, I don’t know if you were watching him on a Canadian channel or not, but here in the States, NBC never mentioned anything about his personal life. Unlike most of the other atheletes whose personal lives we heard about ad nauseum (at times), they never once mentioned he was gay or that his partner was in the stands watching him.

    NBC has since apologized for their coverage-or lack of coverage-of him. Not sure if it really matters one way or another…the networks will do what they want.

  8. Joy Roett says:

    I watched him dive! I was rooting for him.

    Didn’t know he was gay though (I never check for these things) Cool that he could be true to himself!

    Have a great long weekend TA!

  9. Jambrea says:

    What an uplifting story for a Friday. Thank you TA. Have a wonderful holiday. 🙂

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