Australian diver Matthew Mitcham sure had a weekend to remember. After retiring in his teens, the 20-year old emerged victoriously at the Olympic games in Beijing, where he took the gold for the 10 meter platform dive.
And, as if that’s not enough, Mitcham, the first Aussie Olympian to come out, garnered the best score in Olympic history. His mother, of course, couldn’t be more proud:
A stunning final dive that was awarded the highest score in Olympic history [112.10 points] gave Mitcham the gold. She proudly said her son was a man of “firsts”.
“Coming out publicly, that was a first,” said Vivien. “The highest score awarded to an Olympic dive ever, another first. How many more firsts can this child get? Can you find something else to be first in? He’s just done so well. He deserves it.”
Mitcham’s mother wasn’t the only one celebrating. His boyfriend of two-years, Lachlan Fletcher, also showered the diver in love. And now that Mitcham’s won the gold, Flethcer’s confident his sexuality will be overshadowed, “The biggest thing he was worried about was people paying more attention to that than his actually diving. And I suppose that kind of did happen a little bit. Hopefully, now it won’t be so much of an issue any more.”
No matter what drama he went through to get to Beijing, Mitcham says he has no regrets:
Coming back and doing everything I did was to win an Olympic gold medal. When I was training every single day, twice a day, 11 sessions a week, 30 hours a week before every single dive, I said to myself; ‘I want to win an Olympic gold’. It was all worth it.
Of that we have no doubt.
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L
Good on ya, mate!
CitizenGeek
It’s really awesome to see an openly gay athlete win a gold medal at the Olympics! Well done Mitcham!
porsha
Now that’s gay pride indeed! Well done Matt!
Bob R
Incredible athlete. Phenomenally adorable. Congratulations and continued happiness and success. We’re all proud of you.
CHURCHILL-Y
I just want to grab him, kiss him all over , hug him and then abduct him! (:
slider
Congratulations to Matthew Mitcham!!
An amazing story (he was the front cover of the Advocate before the Olympics) and it was awesome to see him succeed (since he didn’t make the final for the 3 meter diving, where I felt so bad for him given his training and struggles to get to the Olympics) but to score the highest score ever on a single dive in Olympic history and being the first openly Gay diver to win an Olympic medal, no less the Gold and to see that his partner was in the stands cheering him on was extra awesome!!
Congratulations to Mitchell Mitcham and of course to his Mum and to his partner!! Bravo!!
ILOVEZ
He is HOT HOT!
Ray
i hope he’s a bitch in real life because he’s damn near perfect otherwise.
jack jett
That is a really awesome photo of an awesome individual. Just for the record, and in case he is reading this, I have a swimming pool with a diving board. So if you are ever in Dallas and feel like you need some practice, you can double back flip in my pool any day (or night)
gayinsf
Great job, Matt, we are all very proud of you. (Queerity…kinda think the pic of Matt looking at us through his legs was a bit cheesy of you.)
Cam
I thought it was very interesting that for all the other gold medalists NBC is sitting there talking about their supportive spouses or boyfriends/girlfriends and would zoom in on them in the audience. Yet when this guy comes along with the AMAZING feat of preventing a one country sweep of the diving Gold and takes a gold for Australia, NBC didn’t mention ONE word about his boyfriend.
SHERWIN BAKLA SALVALOSA
HAS A GAY MAN I WAS OFFENDED BY NBC,BOYCOTT NBC!
Arthur
A nice pic of the couple!http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/9441/matthewmitcham4gr4.jpg