Sydney - There are out-and-proud cabinet ministers, ambassadors, high
court judges and religious leaders, but Australia's only openly gay elite athlete is Matthew Mitcham, who came to fame but not fortune by denying
China a clean sweep in the diving at the Beijing Olympics. Amazingly, the 20-year-old, bottle-blond charmer was the only out-of-the-closet gay man in Beijing's 10,000-strong athletes' village.
Handsome and eloquent, he's likely to be the country's only gold-medal winner not to feature in a television commercial or on a packet of breakfast cereal.
Mitcham's mother, Vivien, said her son had had qualms about inviting his partner, Lachlan Fletcher, to Beijing.
"He was worried about that factor of sponsorship," she confided to a local newspaper.
It's the unvarnished truth: Australians are uncomfortable with gay sports stars. So consumer-goods companies are loathe to link their products with them.
There are hundreds of professional rugby players, but not a single one of them would admit to being a homosexual. The same goes for cricket.
Mitcham might be just the package to break through. He's got the body of an Adonis, a perfect smile and he talks naturally rather than in the verbal robotics favoured by other stars.
"Everything, absolutely everything I have done, has been for this," he said after winning
gold in Beijing. "Now it's happened and I never thought it would."
And he has a story to tell. Mitcham battled depression after missing selection for
Athens and spent nine months in
retirement before getting back on the boards last year.
He was embraced as a gay icon on his Beijing success. "So very proud of you!" an Australian named Nick said in a posting on a newspaper website. "You will be an amazing role model of excellence and fearlessness for the young gay athletes who follow you."
What should also count in his favour is that he's rejected the notion of just being a gay sporting icon.
"I just want to be known as the Australian diver who did really well at the Olympics," he said. "It's everybody else who thinks it's special when homosexuality and elite sports go together."
What really would be special is for homosexuality, elite sports and sponsorship to go together.
David Flaskas is managing Mitcham and reckons he can make him a "significant earner." But it has not happened yet. And Flaskas, who managed swimmer Ian Thorpe, could not promise to achieve the modest goal of turning Mitcham into a millionaire.
There have been no deals to take Mitcham into households. He's not on television shows. There isn't a line of Matt Mitcham swimming togs.
Jim Buzinski is co-founder o
