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[Link to the audio, after the jump.]

I encourage everyone to take a listen. It starts maybe a third of the way through the recording. I think it really gives some great insight into the issues behind the struggle we face getting the sports media to cover the story, not necessarily because of homophobia, but a lack of recognition that gay athletes succeeding are, in today’s culture, a story. My thanks go to DP for tackling the subject; he gets it. The other two guys, who argued that Mitcham’s sexuality isn’t a story, show how much education we still have to do.

“We regret that we missed the opportunity to tell Matthew Mitcham’s story. We apologize for this unintentional omission.”

The statement comes after an NBC spokesperson defended the network’s decision not to mention it.

Zenkel’s response was pretty short and sweet, but is this case closed? They blew it and acknowledged such (after, as I said, defending the decision).

Does Zenkel mean what he says? We’ll see. Couldn’t they make good by doing a story on Mitcham on one of their news or talk shows? That would ceratinly show a deep acknowledgment that they messed up.

The real test will come the next time they’re faced with such an opportunity. Do the commentators mention next time that the athlete they’re reporting on is gay? And now, at what point does NBC or any other media company feel the responsibility to mention someone’s sexuality? I can’t imagine that the softball or soccer commentators mentioned the sexual orientation of lesbian players out there (there were three out American lesbians between the two sports). But on the flip side, I haven’t heard anyone getting up in arms about it. I wonder why.

Second, that picture above there is Germany’s Matthias Steiner - my, and your, new hero to the bear community. You’ll notice the pretty gold medal in his right hand. Well, he won the Super-Heavyweight Weightlifting competion in a gigantic upset. His Snatch lifts left the Austrian-born Steiner in 4th place with Russian strongman Evgeny Chigishev holding a commanding lead. His first Clean & Jerk lift was a failed attempt. He pushed himself on his second lift and got himself up to silver medal level. His third and final lift had to be 10 kgs more than his previous lift to beat Chigishev (an austounding total of 258kgs - or 567.6 lbs) for the gold. He successfully did the next to impossible weight and began crying and jumping around like a little 320lb. boy. As if that wasn’t dramatic enough, when he accepted his medal and Deutschlandlied played, he held up a picture of his late wife who died in a car crash a year ago. Tears flowed on the medal stand and for those lucky enough to watch the competition.

Farewell to Beijing. The games are now closed.  Onto the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010!

AfterElton.com reached NBC spokesman Greg Hughes, who was not aware there had been any controversy over the way the network covered Mitcham during Saturday night’s men’s 10-meter platform diving finals. Mitcham, who is publicly gay and had his partner in the stands, stunned the diving world by winning gold. NBC did not mention Mitcham being openly gay, which cause Outsports and other websites to take the network to task.

When asked why at no point during the coverage did NBC mention Mitcham was gay or that his partner was in the stands, Hughes [told AfterElton], “In virtually every case, we don’t discuss an athlete’s sexual orientation.”

When it was pointed out that in fact the network does exactly that by telling viewers about Olympic athletes’ various spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and even in one case a heterosexual “love triangle” Hughes responded, “Not in every case. Not every athlete has a personal discussion. I could show you 500 athletes we didn’t show. We don’t show everyone. We don’t show every ceremony.” …

“It’s not possible to cover the entire personal story of every athlete regarding their performance. … It’s just not possible to single out coverage.”

Let’s take Hughes’ defense one by one:

“In virtually every case, we don’t discuss an athlete’s sexual orientation.”

Wrong. By showing or describing a male athlete’s wife or girlfriend, or a female’s husband or boyfriend, NBC, by default, is discussing their sexual orientation. They might as well put “Straight” in an on-screen caption.

“Not every athlete has a personal discussion.”

True, and no one expects more than a fraction of athletes to be profiled.

However, NBC DID discuss Mitcham’s private life by mentioning that he had quit the sport and was dealing with “personal issues” (he suffered from depression). NBC did think his personal story interesting enough to mention, but they left out the one part that would have made viewers sit up and take notice, a point Mitcham did not hide — he is gay.

NBC had to be aware of this fact since its online profile of Mitcham said this about the diver: “Mitcham made headlines in Australia when he revealed to the Sydney Morning Herald that he is gay, becoming one of the first Australian athletes to do so. Mitcham said he hopes he can find a way to bring his partner, Lachlan, to support him Beijing — though he can’t afford it on his own”

“It’s not possible to cover the entire personal story of every athlete regarding their performance.”

Fair enough, but wrong in this case. You had an openly gay male athlete competing, which NBC’s website admits is rare. You had the only non-Chinese diver to win a gold medal, doing it with a near-perfect dive, making viewers wanting to know more about this person. It would have taken one of NBC’s two diving commentators, Ted Robinson and Cynthia Potter, all of 10 seconds to mention that Mitcham is gay. You can bet they would have mentioned had he been the first Muslim diver with a medal chance or the first Mongolian.

I am not yet ready to accuse NBC of homophobia, since we don’t know exactly why its commentators and producers whiffed on mentioning Mitcham’s orientation. But I will accuse them of journalistic incompetence, for missing a major angle about a gold medal-winning athlete who beat competitors thought to be unbeatable, an angle not unnoticed by other journalists covering the event. The judges would have given them 1.0’s across the board for a belly flop.

Related: NBC does not discuss Mitcham’s sexuality.

It takes a lot for me to weep while watching sports, but that’s how moving his gold-medal diving performance was Saturday in Beijing.

I teared up when he first saw the score from his final five and looked on in disbelief. Then again when a female friend ran up to him backstage at the Water Cube, hugged him and said, “Matthew, you just won the Olympics!” Mitcham looked stunned, and started to sob. The tears flowed later when I watched the medal ceremony and saw someone who had conquered a lot in his 20 years looking like the happiest person on Earth. An openly gay male athlete won an Olympic gold medal. With his boyfriend cheering in the stands. Wow!

By winning the gold medal in the men’s 10-meter platform diving, Mitcham struck a golden blow for gay people everywhere who’ve been told they’re flawed or not good enough, especially in the athletic arena. For all the gay men who have been called weak, sissies, pansies, too emotional, not tough enough to compete in sports, that final dive was for you. Mitcham helped to shatter those stereotypes and brought me to tears thinking about what was possible.

Weak? You try executing incredibly detailed dives from 30 feet up with the whole world watching and a medal on the line. Then nailing a dive that scored higher (112.10 points) than any ever attempted in the Olympics to win the gold medal.

Not tough enough? Mitcham became the first diver, man or woman, to beat the Chinese in Olympic diving this year. And he did it on their home turf by performance flawlessly under pressure like the champion he is. It was the Giants beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl or a golfer beating Tiger Woods with a 50-foot putt to win the Masters.

With his glorious final round of six dives, the 20-year-old Australian became the most significant openly gay male athlete ever (out lesbians such as Martina Navratilova and Ameile Mauresmo have won their fair share of titles). When it comes to sports, the closet is still much deeper for men than women, which is why Mitcham’s triumph is so historic.

Watching the diving all week, I would bet my life savings that Mitcham was not the only gay man on the springboard or platform. And Greg Louganis, also gay and winner of multiple gold medals, is considered the greatest diver ever. But only Mitcham was out publicly while competing and contending for a gold medal, not worried about the reaction or scrutiny it would bring. Never before have gay sports fan been able to watch a man they know is gay win such a major sporting event; no need for gaydar with Matthew.

His story resonates because it’s universal for millions of people, especially for many who are gay: Struggling with depression, his sexuality and possessing a rebellious streak and a taste for partying for a kid who was not sure he fit in (he might have been the only diver in Beijing to have a pierced tongue). He quit diving in 2006 and came back in 2007 after missing the camaraderie in a place where he was accepted. This is not a spoiled rich kid who had things handed to him. It took a corporate grant from Johnson & Johnson to allow his partner, Lachlan Fletcher, to attend the Games.

Mitcham did not allow his struggles to deter him, but used them as motivation. “I probably wouldn’t have as much of a fighting spirit,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald when he came out publicly this May. “The more you have experienced, the more you have to draw off. I look at the last 20 years as a long, winding path of lessons and some hardship. I hope the rest of my life isn’t straight because that could be boring.”

He has understandably said that he does not want to be known as the “gay diver.” “Being gay and diving are completely separate parts of my life,” he told journalists after winning the gold. “I’m happy with myself the way I am.”

Of course, that is the attitude he should take, but he has become a role model for gays everywhere, whether active in sports or not, simply by being the way he is. We celebrate Mitcham for his courage off the platform and his talent on it, and in the immediate aftermath it’s impossible to separate the two.

Mitcham’s success will not cause a flood of gay athletes to suddenly come out. Every athlete deals with their sexual orientation in his or her own way, and it still is easier to be out in an individual sport than in a team sport with its unique dynamics. Mitcham, though, can act as a symbol that one can be openly gay and yet still scale the heights of their sport.

Matthew Mitcham, athlete. Matthew Mitcham, out and proud gay man. Matthew Mitcham, 2008 Olympic gold medalist. Writing it all makes me cry again. Thanks, Matt.

At the beginning of the summer, there were widespread calls for a boycott of Beijing, as reported by some  media, mainly in the European, blog and indie sectors. Hundreds of athletes were concerned. Several teams, notably Germany, had gone into meltdown over the issue. A couple of open letters were being circulated — one by Joey Cheek’s Team Darfur, the other by Amnesty International and the International Committee on Tibet. The Amnesty letter was addressed to the president of China, calling for an end to China’s death penalty and suppression of dissent in China and Tibet.  Athletes were risking their careers by flocking to sign the letters — around 200 of them. At least 54 of the signers (I’m not sure of the exact total) were scheduled to compete in Beijing. What to do?

Other facts were also clear:  A boycott would be disaster for China’s plan to position itself as a top tourist and investment destination.  It would be equally disastrous for China to arrest any competing athletes who might protest in public during the Games. A boycott would certainly be disaster for NBC.

Most of all, as German fencer Imke Duplitzer pointed out in a pre-Games interview, a boycott would be disaster for 10,000+ athletes who had trained for four years in hopes of adding a medal to their resume. Most athletes do care about human rights, but they also care about making a living. The 1980 and 1984 boycotts over Soviet human rights had accomplished little but setting back a lot of sports careers. What to do?

As August approached,  a flurry of secret negotiations must have gone on, with the Chinese government, the IOC, and Olympic Committees in any countries where teams had exploded with rights issues.  Indeed, I’m sure that China and the IOC had anticipated there’d be problems.  An off-the-record agreement must have been brokered.

By the time the Games opened, the threat of boycott had vanished like the morning dew. A global parade of teams arrived to compete. China did cancel the visa of speed skater Joey Cheek. But it was a symbolic gesture — as a winter-sports figure, Cheek wasn’t going to compete. The 54 competitors who signed the protest letters were allowed to enter China  — my guess is that they had to agree they wouldn’t do any overt protests during the Games (i.e. signs in front of TV cameras). A few  — notably Imke Duplitzer — declined to march in the opening ceremonies as a protest. But she was still allowed to compete.

Everybody got down to business, which was a feel-good Olympics with enough product placement to make all parties happy.

Now NBC is trying to get back some shreds of news-reporting credibility by mentioning a human-rights uproar that was finessed before the Games began.  Rogge is too much of an old-school European diplomat to do more than smile politely and put Costas in his place.

As an aside, I’m baffled by the fact that this same story fell through the cracks with most of the LGBT media.  How could they miss the mentions, in some mainstream media,  that three of our own out Olympic athletes were right in the middle of the  uproar?  My own reports on this story, during the Games, went mostly unnoticed.  It’s nice to see our media going OMG about Matthew Mitcham and his gold medal.  But gee, I thought that activists were supposed to be heroes too.

Imke Duplitzer, out lesbian, had the high profile on the German team during its pre-Games meltdown — she was mentioned in CBS News, USA Today, Time, New Republic, Spiegel. (She wasn’t profiled by NBC, of course.)  Duplitzer was one of the 127 Tibet letter signers. LGBT media also missed mentioning that our two softball players — second baseman Vicki Galindo (who is bi) and lesbian catcher Lauren Lappin –  stuck their necks out too.  Galindo and Lappin signed Joey Cheek’s Darfur letter. Like Duplitzer, they were allowed to enter China and compete.

All three women now have Olympic silvers on their resumes.  But in my book, they also get platinum medals from the universe for risking their careers the way they did.

Note: To see the action starting with Mitcham’s sixth and final dive, fast-forward to 6:40. From then, it’s celebration they never showed on NBC. Mitcham races into the stands at the 13:50 mark.