by Fran Moravcsik

      Well, here I am, back in the real world, sorting my memories of Gay Games VI in Australia through a fog of jet lag. These alternative Olympics happened in Sydney, a city shaped like Seattle with the climate of Los Angeles. Some 12,000 gltbqa folk discovered that it is a wonderful place for a party.
      Before my trip I was so worried about the shot there not being the correct weight for my age that I considered taking my own. That I didn’t do, but I did bring a discus to practice with. Right before my trip I had been given new suggestions on technique, and I was afraid that I would be very erratic until the advice had been digested.
      At first I was overwhelmed by how many of us there were. My flight in was jammed with participants, my hotel lobby swarmed with runners along with their luggage and problems, and the games registration involved long, slow, shuffling lines before we got our credential tags, transport passes, and event schedules. The biggest mob scene of all, though, was opening ceremonies.
      Thousands of us abandoned gridlocked cabs and buses to walk, searching for teammates wearing the same uniform and then being swept along to our assigned sections in the stadium. My adopted Team Los Angeles and the adjoining one from Washington DC, in similar royal blue and white colors, made a large block in the center of the stands, and by loud and rowdy behavior induced the countries lining up to enter the auditorium to give us a preview of the clever tricks they had prepared for the audience inside.
      Hours later, when we finally entered ourselves, the entertainment was about to start. We latecomers were seated beside the stage, viewing the entertainers in profile. When k.d. lang stepped down to walk along the stands she was maybe 50 feet from us, a small confident figure in the spotlight holding an intimate conversation with the thousands sitting above her in the dark.
      When it came to practice and competition, luckily I noticed below my hotel room window a small park built over a garage, little used except for some homeless at night and by noisy exotic birds in the daytime. I picked the line least likely to hit trees, bedrolls or the ibis poking in the garbage can, and got in some useful practice. As it turned out, I got a personal best in the discus competition.
      When I found out that no woman in either competition was nearly as old as I (meaning there wouldn’t be any competition within my age category), I knew that I was assured of two gold medals. If medals were all I wanted, however, I could have also competed in the javelin and hammer throw, with no proper preparation, and gotten two more golds. But my real goal was to perform well enough to stay close to the others, and to show myself a worthy competitor, serious and competent. I was proud to finish ahead of two or three women who were twenty years younger than I.
    The audience I was trying to impress was not those in the stands, for we were almost invisible to them, off at the far side of the infield, hidden by the mesh of the cage around the throwing circle, and the loudspeaker was calling their attention to events on the track. No coaches, girlfriends, or other outsiders were allowed to stay once warmups were over, so we made up our own audience.
      Sitting on the bench waiting our turns, we quickly got to know each other and became pretty good judges of each other’s performance. The judges thought it necessary to remind us, schoolteacher fashion, to stop chattering when someone entered the throwing circle, but the women were watching while they talked, and gave loud cheers and claps for every improved distance or even a mighty effort. I found it less intimidating and easier to keep my focus when the noise level was more like a basketball game than a tennis match.
      Although we were competing against each other, everyone was helpful to those with less experience and admiring to those with more, and all of us valued our comrades’ opinions. Just as I found instant companionship with the gays and lesbians who met in Sydney, I experienced a similar bond with the women who shared my sport.
      Later I got a taste of the spotlight myself, feeling a real thrill as I faced the track crowd from the medal stand while the loudspeaker announced my name, country, and winning distance. By then I was wearing the boldest Vermont tee shirt I owned, showing the crowd there was at least one from here. As I went around the rest of the day with my medals around my neck, I got many positive comments about my state along with congratulations and other conversation.
      More interesting than competition details is how the Gay Games are different from other athletic contests. Ordinarily in straight sports only a rough “manly exuberance” is okay to express the joy of victory, while any trace of the homoerotic is meticulously denied. In these games this part of us is treated in a playful, friendly, gentler manner, not as the main focus of attention but as a welcome guest, the role I would say it probably plays in our lives.
      When a gold medalist kisses the silver and bronze winners, or they all stand together on the top step in a group hug, it is just fun and no big deal. This is never the attitude in the straight world, no matter how gay-positive they try to be or how much our doings are covered in the straight media. To them we are bizarre, alien, and vaguely offputting, and you know they are careful to keep their distance.
      By now I no longer saw these people as a huge crowd, but thought of the individuals. Whatever event or nationality, we were all guests at the same party, free to speak to everyone with an orange identity tag around the neck and know that they were as curious about us as we were about them. The long subway rides, the many meals in restaurants and cafes, and all the parties and performances gave us opportunities to get to know each other. Though I may never see most of these people again, I will remember their conversations and personalities for the rest of my life.
      The most remarkable connection I made in Australia was not with a gltba person at all, but with an aborigine woman. It came about on a train platform, when she heard me say I competed in discus, and she spun around and said, “My daughter is a discus thrower.” She went on to tell me that her 13-year-old daughter was improving with every competition and was regional champion.
      The daughter was in boarding school at the coast, and the woman said she visited the girl one week a month, staying in a tent she pitched in a nearby park. The ladies of the town told her that a madwoman lived there, and when she said, “That woman is me,” they replied, “But you’re not mad.” “Exactly,” was her response, and truly she appeared very intelligent and articulate. Her daughter’s idol is Cathy Freeman, the aboriginal heroine of the Sydney Olympics. The woman I was speaking with had watched that Olympic race with Cathy Freeman’s aunt, who had tickets to the stadium but was so uncomfortable with the crowds that she watched on TV instead.
      The woman went on to tell me more general things: that the nearby town of Blacktown was where her people had been rounded up and given poisoned water to drink, that the survivors were given a name and a number and assigned to an outback station like livestock, and that girls were sent away to school until they were sixteen, when they were given “a cow and a convict.”
      Up north, she said, they still spoke their own tongue. When I asked if she had visited there, she replied, “That is outside my territory. We have our own countries, you know.” She continued to talk to me with her eyes locked on mine, ignoring the guys I was with, for about fifteen minutes, until her train came. She turned on her heel without goodbye, and entered the train which would carry her back to her home in the Blue Mountains. I understand that it is most unusual for these ancient people to talk to outsiders. Though she gave me no reason, I believe she hoped that there was a sorority of women discus throwers worldwide who might befriend her daughter in future competitions. I will be watching for that kid two Olympics from now.
      Yes, I did get to travel around Australia, and had adventures I would love to tell about if space and your patience permitted. However, I really need to say that the next Gay Games will be held four years from now right over the border, in Montreal. Whether you are a bowler or a bodybuilder, a singer or a standup comedian, a pairs dancer or a pole-vaulter, there is a place for you to show your stuff and time enough to get yourself ready. If you insist that you absolutely have no skills or talent, know that hundreds of volunteers will be needed to help it run smoothly. The costs of attending this great event will never be cheaper, and should you meet someone truly special you could even invite them home.
      So see you at Gay Games VII, summer 2006, in Montreal!

Double-gold medalist Fran Moravcsik trains in Burlington.