Gay games male swimmers

When South Florida resident Alvaro Gutierrez picked up swimming two years ago as a therapeutic way to relax his mind and body, he never thought it would become such an important part of his life. This year, he joined more than 1, participants in the swimming program at the Gay Games in Paris representing the Fort Lauderdale Hammerheads. Last year, Gutierrez competed in the World OutGames. Even though the international event was canceled, swimming was one of the few sports that still took place. I had the pleasure of chatting more with Gutierrez about his passion for swimming and his experience at the Paris Gay Games. He hopes to participate in the Hong Kong Gay Games.

Lesbian , gay , bisexual , and transgender LGBT athletes have competed in the Olympic and Paralympic Games , either openly, or having come out some time afterward. Cyd Zeigler, Jr. Marc Naimark of the Federation of Gay Games called the lack of openly gay athletes a symptom, not the problem, of the Olympic Games. Since the International Olympic Committee has listed sexual orientation as a protected category in the Olympic charter. In the Summer Olympics in Beijing , only 15 athletes out of the 10, participants were openly gay, lesbian or bisexual, including:. Of them only two, including Matthew Mitcham who also won a gold medal, making him the first openly gay Olympic champion , were male.

I concealed my emotions. Nearly 2, athletes from 88 countries gathered in Sochi, but only seven of them were out , according to the LGBTQ sports site Outsports. Of these seven athletes, not one was American, and all were women. Now, nearly four years later, Fennell is one of three publicly out male athletes competing to qualify for the Pyeongchang Games.

The site is filled largely with coming-out stories, news analysis and slide shows of good-looking athletes. And every two years, during the Winter and Summer Olympics, its audience traffic rises to new heights, quantifiable evidence of something often generalized and stereotyped. It did not take a shirtless and lubed flag-bearer from Tonga, or photographs of gymnasts on the beach, or divers taking post-plunge showers.