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Australian day magazine is online at samesame.com.au and here are hundreds of pictures of Matt Mitcham and Tom Daley
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Matthew Mitcham is an Australian diver, born 2nd March 1988 in Brisbane, Queensland, but lives and trains in Sydney. Matt is the 2008 Olympic champion in the 10-metre platform event, having received the highest single-dive score in Olympic history.
Matt was one of few openly gay athletes at the 2008 Olympics. He publicly came out as gay in 2008 to the “Sydney Morning Herald” when they were profiling Olympic hopefuls. Prior to his 10 metre platform win, Matt Mitcham was reported to be one of only eleven openly gay athletes competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, out of 11,028 athletes from 204 countries.
Matthew Mitcham has said that after the Beijing Olympics, he received many letters from gay teenagers, “and that was really nice, really humbling”.
Matt gained media coverage in Australia as reporters thought he was the first Australian to compete at the Olympic Games as an openly gay man at the time of his competition. However, Mathew Helm, the Australian diver who won the silver medal at the “2004 Summer Olympics” in the men’s 10 metre platform, had publicly announced he was gay before the Olympics began.
In 2009, Matthew Mitcham was the ‘Chief of Parade’ of the Sydney “Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras” after being declared the 2008 “Australian Sports Performer of the Year”. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he was featured on the cover of Australian gay publication “DNA”. Matt Mitcham’s then boyfriend, Lachlan Fletcher, attended the 2008 Summer Olympic Games as a spectator. His trip was sponsored by a grant from “Johnson & Johnson’s Athlete Family Support Program”
In 2009 and 2010, Matt was selected by readers of samesame.com.au as one of the 25 most influential gay Australians. Matt has said when asked to comment on his coming out: “I don’t see sexuality as influencing my beliefs or opinions or perceptions of anybody, whether they’re gay, straight, bi, trans, experimental, I don’t care. I see it as a very uninfluential factor in people”
Tom Daley won gold and Matt Mitcham silver in the Men’s 10m Platform Final at the “Dr. S.P. Mukherjee Aquatics Complex” during day ten of the “2010 Commonwealth Games” in Delhi, India on 13th October 2010.
You can find hundreds of photos of Tom Daley and of Matthew Mitcham at this site.
During the “2008 Beijing Olympics”, Matt Mitcham was featured on the cover of the international gay publication “The Advocate” in August 2008 and again in March 2009.
He was the first Australian male to win an Olympic gold medal in diving since Dick Eve at the 1924 Summer Olympics. Other notable gay Australian Olympians include Ji Wallace, who competed at the “2000 Summer Olympics” and won a silver medal in the inaugural trampoline event; however, he came out after the Games.
Matthew Mitcham’s Tweet is in the third row above – unfortunately Matt failed to qualify for the finals at the “London 2012 Olympics”!