A terrific 15-minute video edited from the worldwide Olympic feed showing all six of Mitcham’s final dives, the celebration after where he hugs practically every diver, the medal ceremony and him jumping into the stands to give his flowers and a kiss to his partner, Lachlan Fletcher. After the jump.

It was disappointing to see NBC not mention anything about Matthew Mitcham’s sexuality. The biggest reason for me is a journalistic reason: It’s a big story. The only openly gay male athlete in Beijing pulled off one of the great upsets at the Olympics in a spectacular fashion. If he had had cancer, or if his parents had been killed in a car crash when he was 2, or if he had just proposed to his girlfriend, they would have mentioned it. But they never showed him hugging his boyfriend, never mentioned it. They referred to “personal problems,” but I’m afraid they decided Matthew’s sexuality was off limits. A real shame.

Yahoo agrees:

That was a question we touched upon in my gays in sports media panel at the NLGJA Convention this morning just after Mitcham won gold. They didn’t mention it Friday night during the semis. But for them to not mention that the only publicly out male athlete in Beijing won a gold medal would be ignoring a major angle to the story. They have it on his NBCOlympics.com profile. We’ll see if they mention it tonight.

In one of the biggest upsets at the Beijing Olympics, out diver Matthew Mitcham won a gold medal in the 10m platform. The Chinese were heavily favored in the event, and Mitcham was behind Zhou Luxin by about 35 points going into the final dive. But Mitcham hit an unbelievable score of 112.10 on his sixth and final dive to win by just over three points.

“It’s absolutely surreal. I never thought that this would be possible,” Mitcham said.

Statistically speaking, out athletes have been, as a group, disproportionately successful at these Olympic Games. The 11 openly GLBT athletes Outsports has followed over the past two weeks raked in 4 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze medal. In other words, 64% of out athletes won a medal; a third of all out athletes won a gold medal. The medalists are:

Gold: Matthew Mitcham, Australia (Diving, 10m platform); Natasha Kai, USA (Soccer); Gro Hammerseng & Katya Nyberg, Norway (Handball)

Silver: Lauren Lappin and bi athlete Vicky Galindo, USA (Softball)

Bronze: Linda Bresonik, Germany (Soccer)

Former Olympic athlete Lauren Meece, who competed in Judo in 2000, is angry about some perceived push by gays to get Olympic athletes to come out, and she wants gays to shut up. She wrote a column for the Express Gay News:

The GLBT community should let gay athletes deal with gay issues off of the podium. In the name of the Olympic spirit and humanity… shut up and let gay athletes focus on the endeavors that they have worked so hard to reach.

Out Australian diver Matthew Mitcham has qualified for the semifinals in men’s 10m platform diving, finishing second in the preliminary round, missing the top seed by just over 30 points. Both American divers, Thomas Fincham (7th) and David Boudia (6th), have also qualified. Whereas Mitcham barely made the semifinals of the 3m springboard and failed to make the finals, he has set himself up for a serious run at a medal with his prelim performance. NBC will surely show his dives tonight in primetime; and it will be interesting, with their commentators often talking about athletes’ girlfriends, husbands and personal lives, if they’ll mention that he’s the only openly gay male athlete in Beijing.

Out lesbian Natasha Kai is an Olympic gold medalist after the US beat Brazil in the soccer’s gold medal match today. Kai came into the game in extra time to help hold off Brazil, shortly after the USA took a 1-0 lead. Kai has had an excellent tournament: her final minute header gave the USA the win that got them to the semi-final match last weekend.

Out Aussie diver Matthew Mitcham faces the final diving event of the Beijing Games, the 10m platform, beginning with the preliminaries at 7pm Beijing time (7am EST) Friday. Mitcham failed to qualify for the 3m springboard final earlier this week. The 10m platform is thought to be his better event. Americans David Boudia and Thomas Finchum will also compete. China is 7-for-7 in diving gold medals at these Olympics. Can anyone spoil their quest for a sweep?

New to the Olympics: marathon swimming, to be held at the Rowing-Canoeing Park in Beijing starting tomorrow, August 20th. The Park is a lake-size sheet of water where the winds can kick up some nasty 2-3-foot whitecaps. The 10K swim for women is August 20, and the men’s swim on August 21. Swimmers will make several rounds of the park for the distance.  The U.S.A.’s Chloe Sutton is a heavy favorite to win, according to one sport swim site I found.

LGBT interest here: Our own Diana Nyad was one of the great pioneers of this daunting sport, so she’s partly responsible for the fact that it has finally been granted Olympic status.  

Out Aussie diver Matthew Mitcham has qualified for the semifinal round with his six dives in today’s 3m springboard prelims. Mitcham qualified 15th; eighteen divers qualified. Predictably, Chinese men sit first and second. Both American divers, Chris Colwill and Troy Dumais, also qualified. The semis will be held Monday night at 10pm EST and can be followed here if NBC isn’t showing them live.

The 2008 Olympics’ only openly gay male athlete will make his Olympic debut Monday in diving’s 3m springboard preliminaries. Matthew Mitcham, of Australia, is expected to advance beyond the prelims, though his better event is the 10m platform which will take place later this week. You can follow results live at 7am Eastern / 4am Pacific here. The semifinal round will take place at 10pm EST (Mon), and one can only hope NBC will show it live. NBC is likely to delay coverage of the final until the primetime broadcast Tuesday night (though the event will happen at 8:30am EST), and they will focus heavily on American’s Troy Dumais and Chris Colwell. It will be interesting to see whether Mitcham’s sexual orientation is mentioned. For pics, videos and more, check out Matt’s web site.

- Leave it to the gays (like Lance Bass) to completely bastardize the Olympics with the monicker Beerjing and a photo booth with a background that fits American Idol much better than the Summer Games at a party.

- Once-closeted Olympian Bruce Hayes talks about why more athletes aren’t out in Beijing.

- At least one person thinks it’s time for the Gay Olympics (he means the Gay Games) to go away.

- Another thinks the whole Olympics are gay. He offers convincing evidence.

German fencing champion Imke Duplitzer – one of the 10 out athletes in Beijing — may have missed a gold medal yesterday in women’s individual épée, but she should get a diamond-studded platinum medal for speaking out on human rights. Gorgeous gutsy Imke is right in the middle of that firestorm in China, around the PRC’s human-rights policy. As far as I know, she is the only one of our 10 who has spoken up.

Synchronized platform diving partners David Boudia and Thomas Finchum finished a very respectable 5th place Monday in what is one of the summer Games’ hottest events. The American pair showed poise and confidence and appear ready to compete for individual medals next week, when they dive against openly gay Aussie stud Matthew Mitchum. Check out this interview with Finchum talking about how close he and Boudia are. I’m just sayin’.

I chuckled heartily this weekend with the arrival in our Outsports email inbox of a press release from the Federation of Gay Games. It seems they’ve decided to try to make the Olympics about them, and in this year’s biggest “dog bites man” story so far, they’ve “called for” support of out athletes in Beijing. Well, duh! They’ve also offered their magnanimous “best wishes to the International Olympic Committee.” What gets me is that the FGG hasn’t done anything to promote the Olympics or help any of these brave out Olympians, yet they want people to pay attention to them for bestowing their appreciation on them.

A blog at the University of Texas Austin ranks out lesbian handball star Gro Hammerseng 5th on their “Top 10 Sexiest Female Olympians.” The list appears to have been assembled by and for horny college guys:

Gro Hammerseng, the Norwegian handball player, can manhandle us whenever she isn’t too busy winning European championships.

Good luck with that, boys.

Germany’s Judith Arndt finished a disappointing 41st place in the women’s cycling road race. Arndt, who is openly gay and won the silver medal in Athens, was considered a pre-race favorite. The race was hampered by driving rain and treacherous climbs and descents. Nicole Cooke of Great Britian won the race in just over 3 1/2 hours. The top American was Kristin Armstrong in 25th place.

It appears that Matthew Mitcham, the Aussie diver with the highest-profile of the 10 gay athletes at the Oympics, will make his debut on Aug. 18 when the Men’s 3m springboard preliminaries open. The finals take place the next day. Mitcham’s other event, the 10m platform, opens Aug. 22, according to a schedule of events.

Give credit to NBC, whose bio of Mitcham doesn’t shy away from his sexual orientation or the struggle to have his boyfriend attend the Beijing Games.

1st day Eventing Dressage. An opportunity to glimpse the significant ripple made in a sport by one of its most distinguished out gay horsemen, namely Blyth Tait of New Zealand. Blyth has been out for many years and is held in high regard nationally in his country, much like Robert Dover here in the U.S. The first time Outsports mentioned Blyth was during Athens 2004, where he competed in eventing. This time he is managing the NZL eventing team. His presence at Beijing underlines the importance of out sportspeople in key roles off the field.

With the Olympics opening tonight, Southern Voce explores the event and gay jocks who have taken part. Included in the cover story is an interview with Bruce Hayes (photo), the former Atlantan who won gold in the 1984 Games, and a closeted athlete who won silver in 2004. The paper also features a story on what gay tourists and athletes can expect in Beijing. 

As we’ve said many times before, there are surely many athletes at the Olympics who are openly gay with friends and family, and may have even told some of the press, but it just hasn’t gotten much coverage because they’re not a high-profile athlete. While Natasha Kai, who is a forward on the U.S. soccer team, is a great and up-and-coming athlete, a comment of hers in June to an NBCOlympics.com writer didn’t get much press. In talking about attending the U.S. Women’s National Team training camp in January, she said this:

“It was a hard time,” remembered Kai, who saw action limited action under former coach Greg Ryan as one of the last three players added to the 2007 World Cup roster. “I had missed the first camp [under new head coach Pia Sundhage] in early-January because I had bronchitis, and I was going through a nasty break-up with my girlfriend. Then [Coach Sundhage] told me my job was on the line.”

Elsewhere on Outsports, I examine why the number of openly gay and lesbian Olympians in 2008 is only 10. The original article said five until a reader alerted me about U.S. soccer player Natasha Kai. In addition, we have now added four more lesbian Olympians, plus a bisexual softball player. Australian diver Matthew Mitcham, right, is the only male we could find this year who is openly gay. The story has a lot of detail on why this is, including the theory of a gay former gymnast. Read about the 10 openly gay Olympians in Beijing.

What is the gayest Olympic sport?

According to The Advocate that prize would go to figure skating. In the current issue the magazine lists 19 out former Olympic athletes and the top three go like this:
Figure skating - 4
Swimming - 3
Tennis - 3
Big surprise right? This is obviously not a comprehensive list (softball isn’t represented at all). Figure skating has always been viewed as a gay sport, but are their really more gays in figure skating than any of the other Olympic sports or are they just more likely to come out for some reason? So figure skating is maybe a combination of really gay and really brave.

Click here to check out the whole list.

Editor’s note: Author Sean Smith was profiled by Outsports as an out swimmer at Rutgers.

The cover of the current Advocate features out Australian diver Matthew Mitcham with the grabbing headline, “Matthew Mitcham doesn’t want to be the next Greg Louganis (but he might not have a choice).” When I read that, I thought, “What a little punk.” But then I read the quote where the editors obviously got the headline and realized they got it wrong:

But as significant as that moment would be for gay athletes everywhere, Mitcham has only one goal in mind. “I just want to be known as the Australian diver who did really well at the Olympics,” he says. “It’s everybody else who thinks it’s special when homosexuality and elite sport go together.”

Mitcham went on in the interview to draw distinctions between Louganis the person and Mitcham the person; a sentiment that Louganis echoed.