Australian Hottie Swimmer In India Causes Rush

When gays in the city, and elsewhere in the country, found out that homosexual Australian diver Matthew Mitcham would be in the city to participate in the Commonwealth Games, frenzied plans were made. Some wanted to meet him, some wanted to throw a bash for him, but all of them wanted to cheer for him during his competition. But sadly, the tickets fiasco has made that impossible. 

Gay rights activist Mohnish Kabir Malhotra tells us that he, along with a large group of others in the community, wanted to attend the diving event at the SP Mukherjee Aquatics Complex today, but there are no tickets available. He says, "When we got to know that Mitcham is coming, we decided to go in a big group to support him. But there are no tickets! We've tried everywhere – at the counters, online, through friends. We've been told that the tickets have been sold out, and yet, the stadiums are empty. That's strange. I may be able to arrange for a ticket for myself, but we wanted to go with many more people to support him." 

Hemant Sharma (name changed) says that at such a juncture in India's queer identity, Mitcham's presence can be used optimally. He says, "Gay athletes are very apprehensive about coming out of the closet during their careers. But Mitcham did that at the height of his career and has certainly faced problems because of that. But his performance has taken him beyond all of it. At this juncture, he's a great role model and we need to project icons like these in our community. Sadly, we've not been able to touch base with him." 

We also came to know that the queer community in Delhi also wanted to throw a bash for him, but couldn't put plans in place because of security restrictions. Gaurav Narang (name changed), says, "A friend mentioned that a very hot gay swimmer is coming for the games and when I looked him up on the net, I knew I wanted to watch his moves, rather literally! When I checked online for tickets, there were none. But I'm still trying through jugaad." 

Mitcham is... 
Twenty two-year-old Matthew Mitcham is an Australian diver and the 2008 Olympic champion in the 10m platform event, with the highest single-dive score in Olympic history. He was also one of the 11 openly gay athletes in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, out of the total 11,028 athletes in the games. 

Garima Sharma
Times of India...