Mitcham’s support for gay games

The Federation of Gay Games has released a video message from Olympic gold medal winner Matthew Mitcham on its website, gaygames.com, encouraging everyone to participate in the Gay Games.

The 60-second video shows Mitcham training for a dive, followed by a poolside message from the Aussie gay icon: You don’t have to be an Olympian to participate in the Gay Games. The motto of the Federation of Gay Games is participation, inclusion, and personal best. Everyone can play in sport and culture. Why not be part of it?

A second video has also been launched on the 2010 Cologne Gay Games website, games-cologne.com, showing Mitcham encouraging participation in the 2010 Gay Games.

As one of only two openly gay male athletes at last year’s Beijing Olympics, Mitcham earned a huge gay fan base even before he won the gold medal for men’s platform diving.

Federation of Gay Games Vice president of external affairs, Kate Rowe, produced the video with Mitcham.

Despite his heavy training commitments for the 2012 Olympics, Matthew wanted to give something to the global gay and lesbian sporting community by offering to endorse the Federation of Gay Games and the 2010 Cologne Gay Games with his appearance in this video, Rowe said.

We really appreciate Matthew’s generosity in participating freely, and found it a joy to work with him. Matthew’s enthusiasm for the Gay Games is clearly evident. In fact, he hopes to participate himself sometime in the future.