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Matthew Mitcham, an out gay diver from Australia, made a big come-back in his last dive in the 10-meter platform dive winning the gold medal to the chagrin of the Chinese who were hoping to make a sweep in diving. He had been in second place going into the sixth and final dive, but he scored an amazing 35 points in that dive, for a total of 112.10,to move past Zhou, the Chinese diver who had been in first going into the last dive. Mitcham, who earlier had missed out on getting into the 3 meter finals because of nerves seemed to calm himself down in a big way, especially for the final gold-winning dive. You can see part of his gold-medal dive here.
Men’s 10m Platform, Final Standings
Gold–Australia — Matthew Mitcham, 537.95 points
Silver–China — Zhou Luxin, 533.15
Bronze–Russia — Gleb Galperin, 525.80
Here’s a great article by Bob Ballard, a BBC reporter covering diving at the Olympics, telling about the moments of the dive itself and what occurred directly afterward.
Filed under: Politics and Gay Topics | Tagged: Australia, diver, diving, gay, gay athlete, GLBT, matthew mitcham, Olympic Medals, sports
Go Aussie!
I wouldn’t have thought we were much of a medal chance for diving, of all things.
Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi! So proud!!!
Thank you for your post. I posted something about his win also on my blog. I appreciated your reference to the Ballard article. That was a good read. Mitcham turned in the kind of dives that made him deserving of the gold medal. What a great Olympian!
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie–we are worldly proud of you.