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By
Cyd Zeigler
jr.
Sad it's
over: Something very
special happened in Montreal this past week. It
was obvious from the first day when I teared up
a couple times after seeing some of the
incredible things the organizers had in store
for us around St. Catherine Street and at the
opening ceremonies. I teared up again Friday
night as I walked St. Catherine Street for the
last time, saying good-bye to some of the new
friends I had made at the Outgames. Since
arriving back in New York early Saturday
afternoon, it's almost all I've been able to
think about. In the final two days of the
Outgames, I started asking people to rate them.
The worst any participant would give me for them
was a B; most were A-minus or better (more on
this later). Those are pretty good signs that
the experience was something unique and
wonderful.
Both Jim and I will
be sharing some of our thoughts about
experiences in Chicago and Montreal on Monday
evening. Stay tuned.
Thank yous:
I wanted to acknowledge some of the people who
made my week in Montreal so special. Mathew
Bergman, aka Miss Beth Israel, who stayed
with me during the week and whom I cheered to a
bronze medal in tennis. He was a blast to hang
out with, dine with (mostly at Saloon), drink
with (mostly cosmos), and cheer for. Stephen
Nick of Seattle, who reintroduced himself to
me at the opening ceremonies (we had met in
Sydney), and who could be found at Sky Bar every
night. The four Toronto guys of Charlie's
Angels volleyball team whom I ran into just
about every day and who were a lot of fun.
Libby Post, who helped oversee media
relations during the Games, and who was so easy
and fun to work with. Ross Forman, the
great reporter who has started writing for
Outsports.com, and who did reporting for us on
Thursday and Friday when, after three weeks of
covering these two events, I started to
experience a bit of burn-out. And Ido
Verhagen
(said "Ee-do") from the Netherlands. Boy, did
Ido look GREAT in a Speedo.
Openly gay MP competes in
wrestling, weighs in on the boos.
Real Menard (pictured in red), an openly gay MP
for Bloc Québecois, won a silver medal in the
74kg men's competitive masters division of
wrestling. Menard co-founded the Montreal gay
wrestling club Logam in 1999. "I like to
wrestle," Menard says. "It's like politics:
Anything can happen."
I asked him about
the booing of federal minister Michael Fortier
at the opening ceremonies.
"I think it was not
an appropriate thing to do," Menard said. "But,
I think the government has to change its policy
on gay rights. It was the role of the prime
minister to be there and he refused, and I think
that was part of the boos. I understand the
frustration with the government, but I think it
was a lack of respect to boo."
Despite the
conservative party pushing for a new debate on
gay marriage, Menard does not think gay rights
will change because of it.
Thursday's pool party.
The
Montreal gay swim club held a fun pool party
in Jean Drapeau Park Thursday evening. How could
it not be fun with 400 guys in Speedos splashing
around the pool and dancing together? As a
friend said, it was essentially an underwear
party.
Everyone was in a
great mood and chatty, and I think part of that
is because everyone was in a skimpy bathing
suit. You can only cop so much attitude when
you're walking around covered by a few inches of
shape-hugging lycra. It was a little chilly for
a couple minutes when you got out of the water,
but I didn't notice too much shrinkage. I'm
sorry I didn't bring my camera along; but you
can see many of the guys at the party in our
swimming
galleries.
Wear your medals proudly:
As soon as the medals started being handed out
on Sunday, they started showing up around
athletes' necks on St. Catherine Street. And as
soon as that happened, I started hearing snide
remarks about how lame it is to wear your medal
around town.
I understand that
sentiment. When I won gold in Chicago, I didn't
want to wear my medal around. It just felt
funny. But, my overarching feeling is that it's
cool to see athletes proudly wearing their
medals. Some of those athletes went through
weeks and months, and some of them years,
focusing on winning that medal. That medal, for
many, represents so much: hard work, coming out
of the closet, relationships, family, friends.
Everyone had their own story at these Outgames,
as they did at the Gay Games, and I think it's
great that people feel the need and desire to
wear those medals proudly.
With that said, I
actually saw someone in Chicago and someone in
Montreal wearing their gold medals from the
Sydney Gay Games four years ago. Now that is a
bit much.
Fewer medals, please:
With that said, something really should be done
about all of these medals. In women's diving,
there was only one competitor. Should someone
who is the only participant in their event
really be getting the same gold medal that
someone who played six tennis matches in
90-degree heat, or someone who ran a
two-plus-hour marathon, gets? There should be
some minimum number of people who need to
register for an event to hand out medals;
otherwise, the athletes get some kind of award
that is not the same as what other athletes who
had to compete for their medals got.
Then there's the
swimming and track & field events that hand out
medals for age groups. In the 50-meter
freestyle, there were 11 golds, 11 silvers and
11 bronzes handed out. That's absurd. Gay Games
triathlete Brandon Del Campo offered me the best
solution I've heard yet: The best times for the
entire event should get the gold, silver and
bronze medals. Then, give some kind of small
award for age groups. Someone who swims a
52-second 50-meter freestyle just shouldn't be
getting the same silver medal that the guy who
ran a 2:10 marathon.
The "high jump?"
I just have to share this little anecdote. I was
with my friend Nate Russell watching pole vault
on Thursday. I made a comment about the high
jump competition a few days before, to which he
replied with a confused stare. "I thought this
was the high jump," he said. I couldn't help but
chuckle, "No," I said," this is the pole vault."
Even he got a kick out of it. "I assumed this
was the high jump because they were jumping so
high."
Men's softball pretty rough – and
ruckus: I only got the
chance to see a couple softball matches. The
women's matches I saw looked relatively
high-level to me. But the men's game was
seriously missing the American teams that opted
for the Gay Softball World Series or the Gay
Games (it's not that there were none, there were
a couple of American teams at the Outgames'
softball). There were dropped fly balls, bad
throws; it wasn't pretty.
I will say, though,
that the crowd at the games was much louder than
the crowds I saw at the Gay Softball World
Series in 2001. The play wasn't always very
good, but the crowd was into it nonetheless.
Missing West Hollywood water
polo: On another note,
I got to talk to Garrett from the Manchester
water polo team, who complained about the split
between the Gay Games and Outgames specifically
because he had wanted to watch the West
Hollywood water polo team, the class of gay
water polo worldwide, play.
Montreal observations.
Some things struck me about the city of
Montreal. Alcohol: The alcohol selection
at every bar and restaurant we went to simply
sucked. No place had more than three vodkas and
most had only two. Also, the drinks are so tiny.
When I order a cosmo in the States, it's enough
to give me a solid buzz. In Montreal, because
it's all so regulated, it's a half to a third
the size of the average drink in the U.S.
Strip clubs: I'm just not a fan of the strip
clubs in Montreal. I've been on two different
trips; I just don't like the way they're set up
there, with everyone watching one guy dancing.
The strip clubs in Washington, D.C., are great
in comparison. French: I didn't realize
just how dominant French was in Montreal. Not a
bad thing – I just didn't realize it. I had
heard the French speakers in Montreal were a bit
snooty, but I didn't get that impression at all.
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Swimming 2
(33 photos)
Cycling & Roller-racing
71 photos
Hockey
(22 photos)
Bodybuilding
(40 photos)
Swimming, soccer, cycling,
volleyball, track
(48 photos)
Track and field
(44 photos)
Diving
(27 photos)
Swimming
(52 photos)
Beach volleyball
(39 photos)
Powerlifting
(19 photos)
Rowing
(65 photos)
Water polo
(11 photos)
Wrestling
(24 photos)
Tennis
(18 photos)
Opening cermonies
(59 photos)
Soccer
(12 photos) |
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