Five Vermonters, all of them over 40, participated in the Gay Games this summer, and all brought home medals. Richard Alther of Ferrisburgh has returned to competitive swimming after a ten-year absence - and with great success.
      At 66, Alther has jumped back into swimming and won four gold medals; in 100, 400, 800 and 1,500- meter races at the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago. Swimming freestyle, or crawl, in each one, Alther also won the silver medal for his 200- meter race, which he lost by half a second. He competed in the men’s 65 to 69 age category.
       “I trained all year,” said Alther, who is retired and so has recently had the time to devote to swimming.
      “It’s wonderful to get totally immersed” in other activities besides a career, said Alther, who retired as co-owner of Country Home Products in Vergennes. Growing up gay, he said, was hard on his self-esteem, and he internalized feelings of inadequacy.
       While he excelled in scholastics, Alther was not particularly athletic. Originally from the New York area, he remembers summers at his grandparent’s camp on Lake Champlain near Otter Creek. He was naturally a good swimmer and later was chosen for the swim team as a freshman at Cornell University, but was not enthusiastic about it at the time.
       Alther did not choose to get involved in competitive sports until a business colleague impressed him with her enthusiasm about her swimming competition. He joined her group, meeting for swim practice every morning at 5:30 at St. Michael’s College in Colchester. When, at the age of 44, Alther swam in his first competition, it was a momentous occasion.
    “For the first time I felt strength physically,” Alther said, referring to his entrance into competitive sports as his “revenge of the nerds.”
      He competed nationally for the next 10 years, including winning a number of medals at the second Gay Games in San Francisco in 1986, and at the New York Gay Games in 1994. Shortly after that, however, he stopped competing as a swimmer as he “got too involved in business,” and did not compete again until this summer.
      When Alther heard about the Gay Games coming to Chicago in July, he decided the time was right for his return. Competing in the five events - the maximum number allowed - was “intense,” Alther said. It was necessary to eat properly and get enough rest during the week’s events.
      Alther and his partner, Ray Repp, decided they preferred the Gay Games to the Outgames in Montreal, due to their disappointment over the dispute between Gay Games organizers and organizers in Montreal, where the Gay Games were initially to be held. Repp joined Alther at the games, “as my private cheer squad,” Alther said. Asked if athletes are made rather than born, Alther answered “absolutely!”
        “Swimming over 100 meters is mostly mental,” he said, accomplished by pacing oneself and focusing on technique. As for swimming competitively, “I’m going to keep going,” Alther said. He plans to participate in the May 2007 National Masters Championships, an annual meet.
         Beth Mintz of Burlington, and Esther Rothblum, formerly a professor of psychology at UVM, now living in San Diego, have been playing raquetball together for 25 years, but mostly for relaxation, Mintz told OITM. They traveled to the Gay Games to compete together.
      “This is the most competitive thing we’ve ever done,” said Mintz, a professor of sociology at UVM.
      Their 25 years of playing paid off. Mintz won a bronze medal for singles raquetball, Rothblum won a silver medal for singles, and the two together won a bronze medal for doubles.
       “This was our last hurrah to play together,” Mintz said after returning from Chicago. She said there will be no raquetball at the next Gay Games in Cologne, Germany in 2010, as the United States is one of the few countries in the world that has raquetball courts.
       However, one of the positive things to come out of the Gay Games was the establishment of a national gay and lesbian raquetball group that plans to hold its own tournaments, Mintz noted.
      “If this gets off the ground, I’ll definitely play competitive raquetball some more,” she said.
       The sweltering heat wave that hit much of the country in July didn’t spare the competitors in Chicago. While participants in air conditioned venues, including raquetball, may have been able to stay fairly cool, others found that their performance at the Games was affected by the heat. Some events, held outside under the sun, must have been especially challenging, such as biking.
       Even so, one Vermonter brought home several medals in biking events. OITM did not get to speak with her directly, but learned that Elizabeth Campbell of Rutland earned a bronze medal in the criterium, silver in the road race, silver in team time trial, and a gold medal in the mountain bike race.
      Fran Moravcsik of South Burlington also took part in outdoor events, winning gold medals in shot and discus, and silver in javelin (see her story on page 1).
      Joan Gardner, a powerlifter from Charlotte, said the heat index probably hovered around 100 to 105 degrees on the hottest days, and her events were not air-conditioned. As a result, she competed in only one event, the bench press, and won a gold medal in her one try.
       “It was so hot at this thing,” Gardner said. “It’s so hard to do your best in conditions like that.”
      Gardner said there were organizational problems, and she still doesn’t have her gold medal. Only a few events - including weight lifting - required drug testing, and participants had to wait until after the closing of the Games to receive their medals. Gardner sounded otherwise positive about her experience, however.
     “It was a lot of fun to be there with everybody,” she said. “Participating in the opening and closing ceremonies were the most gratifying part of going to the Gay Games, affirming of me as a gay world-class athlete.”
      Gardner said she planned to compete in another event shortly after the Gay Games, but closer to home, in Brattleboro. “I expect I will break my own record at that,” she said.