Beijing To Host 2022 Winter Olympics

CNN has more:

Beijing is set to become the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics after it was chosen to stage the 2022 Winter Games. International Olympic President Thomas Bach confirmed Beijing, which hosted the Summer Games in 2008, had been chosen ahead of Almaty in Kazakshtan at the 128th IOC session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Friday. "I am so excited. This is China's pride," Zhang Hong, China's women's 1,000m speed skating gold medal winner at the Sochi Games, told CCTV. Only Beijing and Almaty had been left in the running after Oslo, Munich and Stockholm bowed to public pressure and decided not to pursue plans to host the winter sports showpiece.

The opening ceremonies for Beijing's 2008 Games was the most stunning thing I've ever seen on television.

Out Lesbians Take Six Medals In Beijing

In addition to the stunning upset victory of out gay diver Matthew Mitcham, six of the thirteen out lesbians at the Beijing Olympics won medals, including girlfriends Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg, who took Norway's handball team to the gold. Go to 365gay.com for a great photo recap of lesbionic fabulousity.

Over at OutSports, there's this fascinating factoid:

Statistically speaking, out athletes have been, as a group, disproportionately successful at these Olympic Games. The 11 openly GLBT athletes Outsports has followed over the past two weeks raked in 4 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze medal. In other words, 64% of out athletes won a medal; a third of all out athletes won a gold medal. The medalists are:

Gold: Matthew Mitcham, Australia (Diving, 10m platform); Natasha Kai, USA (Soccer); Gro Hammerseng & Katya Nyberg, Norway (Handball)

Silver: Lauren Lappin and bi athlete Vicky Galindo, USA (Softball)

Bronze: Linda Bresonik, Germany (Soccer)

UNRELATED NON-GAY HOTNESS: Y'all can swoon over those faux-thug gymnast boys all you want, for my money the hottest man at the Olympics was American volleyball team captain Lloy Ball, who yesterday took his team and his 36 year-old scuff-daddyness all the way to the gold medal.

Golden Gay: Matthew Mitcham, Australia's Out Olympic Diver Wins Gold

In what is being hailed as one of the most tremendous upsets of the Beijing Olympics, openly gay Australian diver Matthew Mitcham won a gold medal today after his string of perfect 10's recorded the highest scoring dive in Olympic history.

Mitcham's pulled off a stunning final dive in the 10 metre platform, scoring an incredible four perfect 10s, to steal the gold off favourite Chinese diver Luxin Zhou. Mitcham finished with 537.95 points. It was a massive upset defeating the premiere and form Chinese divers Liang Huo and Luxin Zhou in front fierce home crowd.

Mitcham, 20, battled depression, retired in his teenage years after physical and emotional burn-out, then just nine months later resumed his sport in 2007. Last night his triumphant return to the sport was crowned with gold. His coach Chava Sobrino, who encouraged Mitcham back into the sport, elatedly embraced diver and Mitcham broke down in tears.

It was late 2006 that Mitcham lost passion for diving and suffering depression he quit. During his hiatus from the sport last year to make money he plunged from a tower 14 metres high into a pool of water for crowds at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney. That job reignited his passion for the sport.

One person who has been by his side for the entire tumultuous and now brilliant journey is his partner, Lachlan, he was in the crowd last night courtesy of a Johnson & Johnson Olympic sponsorship. Mitcham is one of only a few "out" gay athletes in Beijing and the first Australian to openly declare his homosexuality going into an Olympics.

Mitcham, age 20, is now expected to be a star of Australia's 2012 team in London.UPDATE: Here's a clip of Mitcham being interviewed with his mother after his win as his boyfriend stands next him. Very nice to see the two boys hugging each other in front of the international sports press.

IOC Inquiry For Chinese Gymnasts

The International Olympic Committee is finally looking into the ages of the Chinese female gymnasts.

The IOC did not give details on what new information prompted it to act now, three days after the gymnastics competition ended. "With some questions still remaining, we asked the federation to take a closer look," Davies said.

The Chinese women won six medals, including the team gold and He's gold on uneven bars. Media reports include a Nov. 3 story by the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, that suggest He is only 14. Asked earlier this week about her age again after winning the uneven bars title, beating American Nastia Liukin in a tiebreak, she said:

"I was born in 1992, and I'm 16 years old now," He said. "The FIG has proved that. If I'm under 16, I couldn't have been competing here." Earlier this month, the AP found registration lists previously posted on the Web site of the General Administration of Sport of China that showed both He and Yang were too young to compete. He was born Jan. 1, 1994, according to the 2005, 2006 and 2007 registration lists. Yang was born Aug. 26, 1993, according to the 2004, 2005 and 2006 registration lists. In the 2007 registration list, however, her birthday has changed to Aug. 26, 1992.

"We played fair at this Olympic Games," Liukin's father and coach, Valeri, said after they arrived back in the United States. "... If somebody cheated, shame on them."

A Chinese bronze medalist admitted recently that she was only 14 at the Sydney games, thereby cheating the rightful winner of her medal.

Enough With The Floor Mics, Already

Nice photo that the New York Times provides us of the gold medal winning Chinese men's gymnastics team, eh? Being stereotypical gays, we rushed back from dinner last night to catch the finals, but found ourselves mostly grumbling about NBC's insistence on making us listen to the American team's inane "we are gymnasts, but we are totally not gay" sports patter to each other on the competition floor. "Yeah, bro! Right on, dude! That's what I'm talkin' about! You tha' man, son!" Backslap, high-five, hip-hop hug. Turn off the microphone and show us the scoreboard every now and then.

The Greatest Thing In the History Of Everything

I've watched the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics three times now and I still cannot get over how fantastic it was. Despite all of my issues with the Chinese government, I must admit that the first 90 minutes of the show is quite simply the most amazing thing I have ever seen on any screen. But aside from the stunning technology on display, one comes away with a very simple message, depicted over and over again by thousands of precisely synchronized young men. That message: "Do not fuck with China." And when the mass of adorable children handed the Chinese flag over to a group of goose-stepping soldiers? Intimidating, and not a little bit, terrifying.

The Boston Globe has some gorgeous photos here.

ADDENDUM: You totally have to feel sorry for Vancouver. There's no way the next Olympics can come close to what the Chinese did.

Gender Testing For Female Olympians

Some female athletes at the Beijing Olympics will undergo controversial gender tests to ensure that they are genetically women.

Organizers of the Beijing Olympics have set up a sex-determination laboratory to evaluate “suspect” female athletes, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Sunday. The lab is similar to ones set up at previous Olympics in Sydney and Athens, and will draw on the resources of the Peking Union Medical College Hospital to evaluate an athlete’s external appearance, hormones and genes.

Some medical ethicists have said the practice is too intrusive. “Real people are going to be hurt by this,” said Alice Dreger, an associate professor in medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University. Real Olympic athletes who have spent their whole life waiting for this moment.”

Although only athletes whose gender has been questioned will be tested in Beijing, the lab is a relic of an earlier Olympic era, when every female athlete was required to submit to a sex-verification test before competing in the Games. The tests emerged in the 1960s, when the Soviet Union and other Communist countries were suspected of entering male athletes in women’s events to gain an edge. At first, women were asked to parade nude before a panel of doctors to verify their sex. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, officials switched to a chromosomal test.

Some scientists are blasting the testing as unfair, saying that gender is not always a "cut and dried" issue. Some people who appear physically female have a Y chromosome while some people who look like men may not. Only one case of deliberate gender cheating has even been proven in Olympic competition - a 1936 German high-jumper who 20 years later revealed that the Nazis had forced him to compete as a woman.