Olympic gold medalist Matthew Mitcham on being gay: “I don’t mind attention being put on it”

Australian diver Matthew Mitcham was the only openly gay Olympian – in any spot from any country – competing in the 2008 Summer Olympics and he left the games as a gold medalist.

With the 2012 Olympics in London fast approaching, it remains to be seen if anyone else will have the courage to join Mitcham as an openly gay competitor.

‘I certainly don’t see it as a burden,” Mitcham told The Sydney Morning Herald this week. ”I never did, especially with how much attention the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered] cause has been getting lately with marriage equality … and with how few openly gay sports stars there are around at the moment. I don’t mind attention being put on it.”

He added: ”Ideally I would like one day for sexuality to be as unimportant and uninteresting as hair color, or eye color or even just gender in general. One day it will get to that.

”But until it is easy for sports people to come out without fear of persecution or fear of lost sponsorship income and stuff like that, or fear of being comfortable in the team environment, I don’t mind attention being brought to my sexuality in the hope that it might make other people feel more comfortable … in being comfortable enough about who they are in their sporting environment.”