Mark Leduc

Mark Leduc born 4 May 1964 (d. 2009)

Mark Leduc was a former boxer from Toronto, Canada, who won a silver medal at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics.

Mark Leduc was not a hero, at least not until 1992, when he won a silver medal for Canada at the Olympics in Barcelona. Before that singular accomplishment, he was only a tough kid. To his close friends, he was a hard man who happened to be gay. By the time he was 12 years old, Leduc was certain of only two things: his sexuality and his deep love of boxing. A friend invited him along to a gym in Toronto's east end, and it didn't take long before he was hooked. His parents separated when he was 15 and Leduc went to to live on the streets.

Leduc got into trouble for robbing a jewellery store at gunpoint. He had been told by an accomplice that it was an insurance scam: the owner wanted the place turned over and hired them to make it look real. Leduc grabbed the gold and gems, passed them over, pocketed a cash fee, and was picked up by the police a few weeks later. He was sentenced to over six years in prison.

After about 18 months inside, a guard took a shine to Leduc, and tried to secure him day passes so he could train in a real gym. The first application was rejected by the warden, but Leduc was ultimately awarded 72 hours a month in the outside world. He used his 'free' time sparingly: an hour to train here, a couple of hours to train there, a few more hours for a fight. He began to acquire a smart amateur record.

The 1984 Olympics came and went while Leduc languished in prison. He was released in time for the 1988 Summer Games trials, but failed to earn a spot on the team that was to go to South Korea. Leduc decided to stick with the sport for another four years. After winning both the national championship, and the gold medal at a preliminary international meet, Leduc was on his way to Barcelona, where he won silver.

Leduc turned pro in 1992 and had limited success. He retired in 1993.

Leduc came out as a gay man in 1994 in the TV documentary For the Love of the Game and attended Toronto’s Pride parade in 1999 as grand marshal (with Savoy Howe).

Leduc worked for and volunteered with the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation. His final occupation was that of set-builder and construction worker in the film industry.

Leduc died on July 22, 2009 in Toronto. He had collapsed in the sauna of a local hotel, and doctors suggested that his death may have resulted from heat stroke.

Greg Louganis

Greg Louganis born 29 January 1960

Gregory Efthimios Louganis is an American diver.

Louganis is best known for winning back-to-back Olympic titles in both the 3m and 10m events. He received the James E. Sullivan Award in 1984 as the top amateur athlete in the United States.

Louganis was raised in California to adoptive parents. He is of Samoan/Swedish descent, and was adopted by a Greek-American family.

At age 16, he took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis went on to win his first world title in the same event.

In 1978, he accepted a diving scholarship to the University of Miami where he studied theatre, but in 1981 transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.

Louganis was a favourite for two golds in the Moscow Olympics. But an American boycott of the games, instituted by US President Jimmy Carter, in protest of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, prevented him from participating.

Four years later, with the Games in Los Angeles, Louganis (who in the meantime had won two world titles in 1982) grabbed his revenge. With record scores and leads over his opponents, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events.

After winning two more world championship titles in 1986, he repeated his 1984 feat in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, although not without difficulties. In one of his jumps in the springboard event, Louganis famously hit the diving board with his head while attempting a reverse 2 1/2 pike, but the resulting injury did not prevent him from going on to win the gold medal.

In 1994, Louganis announced he was gay and went on to compete in the Gay Games.

In 1995, Louganis's autobiography, entitled Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story, was published. Louganis revealed publicly that he was HIV-positive. The announcement caused some controversy because many felt he should have informed the treating doctors and those who used the pool of his HIV status following his injury, which caused light bleeding, in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. However, there was no medical danger to anyone using the pool following the injury.

Following the announcement of his HIV status, Louganis was dropped by most of his corporate sponsors, with the exception of Speedo, which continue to sponsor him to this day.

A 1997 made-for-TV movie was made from the book, starring Mario López as Louganis.

Since retiring from competitive diving, Louganis has done some acting and continues to speak out for various groups and organisations.

Greg Louganis Official Website

John Curry

John Curry born 9 September 1949 (d. 1994)

John Curry was a British figure skater who won the Olympic and World Championships in 1976. He was famous for combining ballet and modern dance influences into his skating.

Curry was born in Birmingham, England. As a child, Curry wanted to become a dancer, but his father disapproved of dance as an activity for boys, so instead at the age of 7 he began to take figure skating lessons. For the first several years, Curry's involvement with skating was rather casual. Curry's father died when he was 16; he then moved to London to study with Arnold Gerschwiler, who coached him to his first British title in 1971. In 1972, Curry found an American sponsor who enabled him to study in the United States with Gus Lussi and Carlo Fassi. Fassi coached him to European, World, and Olympic titles in 1976.

Curry was the flag bearer at the 1976 Winter Olympics for Great Britain. He also was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1976. He was awarded the OBE.

As an amateur competitor, Curry was noted for his ballet-like posture and extension, and his superb body control. Along with Canadian skater Toller Cranston, Curry was responsible for bringing the artistic and presentation aspects of men's figure skating to a new level. At the peak of his competitive career, Curry was also accomplished both at compulsory figures and the athletic (jumping) aspects of free skating.

Following the 1976 World Championships, Curry turned professional and founded a touring skating company along the same lines as a traditional dance company. Besides choreographing routines for the company himself, Curry commissioned works from such noted dance choreographers as Peter Martins and Twyla Tharp.

Curry was reportedly a difficult person to get along with, and a dispute with the business managers of his company forced it to suspend operations in the mid-1980s. After that, Curry performed only rarely in public.

Although it was a potentially career-destroying move, Curry came out publicly as a gay man before the 1976 Winter Olympics, becoming one of the very few elite athletes to come out while still competing. Throughout his career, he consistently spoke candidly about his sexual orientation.

Curry's Broadway theatre credits include Icedancing (1978) as a performer and director and the 1980 revival of Brigadoon as an actor.

In 1987, Curry was diagnosed with HIV. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1991. Prior to his death, he spoke openly to the press about both his disease and his sexual orientation and supported AIDS benefits with his skating. He spent the last years of his life with his mother. He died of an AIDS-related heart attack on on 15 April 1994 in Binton. He was just 44 years old.

Daniel Kowalski

Daniel Kowalski born 2 July 1975

Born in Singapore, Daniel Kowalski is a former Australian middle- and long-distance swimmer specialising in freestyle events. He competed in the Olympic Games in 200m, 400m and 1,500m individual freestyle events and in the 200m freestyle relay. At the 1996 Summer Olympics, he was the first man in 92 years to earn medals in all of the 200m, 400m and 1500m freestyle events.

Kowalski was part of the world record-setting Australian gold medal 4 x 200m relay team at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

In the 2000 summer Olympics he won a gold medal in the 4 x 200 m freestyle relay (Kowalski was replaced in the final by Ian Thorpe but as a swimmer in the qualifying heat, he shares the gold medal).

Kowalski announced his retirement from competitive swimming in May 2002. He studied sports marketing at Bond University, graduating in 2003. He was named as an assistant swimming coach at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2007, and also won the 2007 Pier to Pub 1.2km open water swim - the largest open water swim in the world - held annually in Lorne, Australia.

In May 2007 Daniel appeared as one of the celebrity performers on the Australian version of the celebrity reality singing competition It Takes Two.

In April 2010 Kowalski announced that he is gay, joining elite male Australian athletes who have announced that they are gay including retired NSW rugby league player Ian Roberts and Olympic gold-medal winning diver Matthew Mitcham. Kowalski says he was inspired to come out by Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas, who announced in December 2009 that he was gay.

'I felt really compelled to do it because it's very tough to live a closeted existence, he said. In a statement issued at the time Kowalski talked of years of struggling to come to terms with his sexuality and his fear of the homophobia of professional sports, citing the few gay sportsmen who have spoken out as inspirational.

Matthew Mitcham

Matthew Mitcham born 2 March 1988

Matthew Mitcham, OAM is an Australian diver. He is the 2008 Olympic champion in the 10m platform, having received the highest single-dive score in Olympic history. He is the first Australian male to win an Olympic gold medal in diving since Dick Eve at the 1924 Summer Olympics, and one of few openly gay athletes at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Mitcham was born in Brisbane but lives and trains in Sydney.

Mitcham originally competed as a trampoline gymnast. He was discovered by a coach at the Australian Institute of Sport Diving Program, while at the Chandler Aquatic Centre in Brisbane's suburbs, and continued with both diving and trampolining for several years.

As a trampolinist, Mitcham represented Australia at the World Junior Championships in 1999 and 2001, winning the double mini-tramp event. He also competed at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in 2003, finishing sixth.

From 2002 through 2004, Mitcham was a national junior champion in diving, winning the events in which he competed. Mitcham competed at the 2002 World Junior Diving Championships. In 2004, he won the silver medals in the 1m, 3m synchronised, and 10m platform events at the World Junior Championships. At the 2004 Junior Nationals, he won the 1m, 3m, and 10m and 3m synchro titles. At the 2004 Olympic Trials, he placed strongly but did not qualify for the Olympic team. In 2005, Mitcham won his first senior national title.

In 2006, Mitcham started competing in senior internal diving events and Australia at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where he competed in the 1m, 3m, and 10m events. He placed 4th in the 3m and the 3m synchro, and 5th on the 1m and 10m events.

Taking a break from the sport in 2006, he returned in 2007 and started to train under current coach Chava Sobrino at the New South Wales Institute of Sport. In 2008 Mitcham won the 1m, 3m and 10m individual events at the Australian Nationals. Later that year he won the 2008 Diving Grand Prix event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His prospects were looking very promising for the 2008 Olympics.

He publicly came out as gay in 2008 to the Sydney Morning Herald when they were profiling Olympic hopefuls. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he was also featured on the cover of the international gay publication The Advocate in 2008 and 2009.

Mitcham gained media coverage as the first Australian to compete at the Olympic Games as openly gay at the time of his competition, though this was inaccurate, as Mathew Helm, who competed in the same event, was also out before the Olympics began. Other notable gay Australian Olympians include Ji Wallace, who competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics and won a silver medal in the inaugural trampoline event; however, he came out after the Games.

Mitcham represented Australia at the 2008 Summer Olympics in the 10-metre platform and the 3-metre springboard events. He placed 16th on the 3m springboard and did not qualify for the final. He qualified in second position for the semi-final and final of the 10m platform event. After experiencing mixed success in his first five dives in the final, Mitcham entered the final round of dives in second place, 34 points behind Chinese diver Zhou Lüxin. After Zhou performed his worst dive of the final, Mitcham still needed to achieve an impossibly high score to win the gold. However, his near-perfect final dive drew four perfect 10 scores from judges and achieved the highest single-dive score in Olympic history. He finished with an overall score of 537.95 to defeat Zhou, who finished with an overall score of 533.15, to win Australia's second diving medal of the Games. His win prevented China from claiming a clean-sweep of all diving gold medals at the Olympic Games.

Prior to his 10m platform win, Mitcham was reported to be one of only eleven openly gay athletes competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, out of 11,028 athletes from 204 countries. That he should have come out at such an early stage of his career - the relatively few international sportsmen who have come out have generally done so towards the end of their career or after they have finished competing - makes Matthew Mitcham an inspiration to others growing up gay, and to those competing sportsmen who fear the consquences of opening the closet door and stepping out.