11 out gay/bi athletes to watch at the Olympic Games

Of 10,708 athletes from a record number of 205 participating countries at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games which opens on Friday, only 11 are known to be openly gay or bisexual; of which only one is a gay man. Outsports.com's Jim Buzinski, who initially counted five athletes but later amended the list to 11 after being alerted by readers who had written in, listed one gay man Australian Matthew Mitcham (diving), one female bisexual American Vicky Galindo (softball), and nine lesbians: Judith Arndt (Germany, cycling), Imke Duplitzer (Germany, fencing), Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg (Norway, handball and a lesbian couple), Natasha Kai (US, soccer), Lauren Lappin (US, softball); Victoria "Vickan" Svensson (Sweden, soccer); Rennae Stubbs (Australia, tennis) and Linda Bresonik (Germany, soccer). The most well known of the lot is undisputedly Mitcham who made a splash around the world for being the first openly gay Australian man to compete in the Games. On May 24, The Sydney Morning Herald broke the news of his being gay in "Out, proud and ready to go for gold." The 20-year-old diver told a gay Sydney newspaper that he had not intended to come out and was just answering a question a question posed to him by the journalist.

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