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.

The Summer Olympics just keep getting bigger. There are 302 gold medals up for grabs in Beijing. That’s a gold medal every 47 minutes for the sixteen-day span of the games. Doesn’t sound so special when it’s put that way, does it? But is that BMX gold medal really as significant as the historic one Michael Phelps won last night? No, and there are good reasons why. Follow the jump for an in-depth analysis of the most valuable gold medals and the sports that don’t even deserve to be in the Olympics.

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.

The Hamm brothers certainly gained a lot of attention in Athens in 2004, but this time around it will likely be the Lopez taekwondo trio the press will latch onto. The elder statesman of the bunch is Steven Lopez (left), who is a two-time gold medallist; Mark and Diana are making their Olympic debuts this time around. Like the Hamms, not only is it a great sibling story, but they’re all quite attractive. Steven is presently gracing Minute Maid juice cartons and Coca-Cola packaging. You’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the coming weeks.