Martina Navratilova Gets Married

Lovely bit from the BBC: "A role model still for millions of aspiring players, today she is something more private, more romantic. She is a bride."

Martina Navratilova Gets Engaged

#TennisChannel's @Martina Navratilova proposing in the TC @usopen suite! Congrats!! #shesaidyes #happilyeverafter pic.twitter.com/bDfdCVfDAD
— TennisChannelPR (@TennisChannelPR) September 6, 2014

Via People Magazine:

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, 57, got engaged to girlfriend Julia Lemigova, 42, in a moment that was telecast on the Jumbotron during the day's play at New York's Arthur Ashe stadium. Navratilova popped the question during a break while she was providing color commentary for the men's matches. The tennis legend was being interviewed by Ken Solomon in the Tennis Channel suite when she turned to Lemigova and said she would be asking the questions this time. Navratilova got down on one knee and offered her girlfriend a diamond-studded ring.

Martina Navratilova & Jason Collins Call On Sporting Bodies To Respect LGBT Rights

Martina Navratilova and Jason Collins yesterday called on international sporting groups to respect LGBT rights. The pair spoke at a United Nations event marking International Human Rights Day.

They focused in part on the upcoming Winter Olympics in Russia, which passed a law this summer banning homosexual "propaganda." The law has drawn international condemnation and sparked calls for a boycott, though no nations have threatened to pull their athletes. Navratilova, who lost lucrative endorsements when she came out in 1981, said she doesn't support boycotts of any kind. But she said the IOC is "putting its head in the sand" and criticized FIFA, the world soccer body, for awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. "Nobody's talking about Qatar and the World Cup. You can get a jail term there," she said of consensual gay sex in the Persian Gulf nation. In six other countries, including Saudi Arabia, simply being gay is punishable by death, she said. "Gays and lesbians seem to be the last group it's seen as OK to pick on," she said.

Watch video here.

National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall Of Fame To Induct First Class Of Honorees

Tonight the National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall Of Fame will induct its first class of honorees in Chicago.

Dave Pallone, who was part of Chicago history when he umpired the first night game at Wrigley Field, is returning to Chicago to take part in another chapter of American sports history: His inclusion in the inaugural class of what organizers say is the first-of-its-kind National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame. On Friday night, Pallone will be honored in the first class of inductees that includes tennis greats Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King, Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis, and Jason Collins, who in April became the first active male professional athlete in a major team sport to publicly reveal he was gay. "It is a tremendous honor and ... I hope it gives young people and adults alike who happen to be LGBT and want to be in professional sports another example of why they should continue to strive for their dreams," Pallone said.

Being posthumously inducted is late pro baseball player Glenn Burke, who is credited with popularizing the high-five. Burke died of AIDS in 1995.

Martina Navratilova On ENDA