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Outsports Clubhouse: Membership For Gay Sports Fans And Athletes
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Pomp and Pumps--Gay Games Kicks Off
 By Jim Buzinski
Outsports.com
The biggest sustained applause among the 13,000 athletes waiting to stride into Sydney?s Aussie Stadium came when it was announced that India and Pakistan would be marching in together.
The small contingent from the two South Asia lands, where blood flows easily from decades of hatred, did what neighbors are supposed to do?they embraced and walked together. If only gays ruled the world.
The sixth Gay Games kicked off Saturday with a flourish of color, camp and enough bare flesh to make Hugh Hefner proud. The Opening Ceremonies are always a highlight and this proved no exception in Sydney. There were the customary speeches and highlight performances from kd lang and Jimmy Somerville, but as in any Gay Games the biggest stars are the athletes, competing for a medal or just for the experience.
Yes, the ceremony ran overtime (think the Academy Awards) and athletes from countries that began with ?M? or later missed the majority of those who marched into the stadium. But these inconveniences were more than made up by the joyous camaraderie as men and women of all ages, races and body types hugged and mugged for thousands of cameras.
We saw a contingent from New Zealand greet everyone with a welcome ?Haka,? sung in Maori. We saw tight-bodied studs from Singapore march in bikinis. We saw Team Boston wearing lobsters on their heads, Team Cincinnati sporting pigs and the Netherlands in orange, orange and more orange (except for the swimmers clad in white bikinis and sporting fake pigtail wigs). Team Berkeley paid homage to both ancient Greeks and Jerry Garcia by sporting colorful tie-dyed togas. Five Scottish blokes in kilts twice mooned the athletes waiting to march in and that was one of the tamer displays.
The Games boasted athletes from nearly every nation on Earth, including an Iraqi playing for an Australian rugby team, and one from a place that?s not even a nation, Antarctica. The transgendered netball team from Tonga felt as much at home as the thousands of American jocks yelling ?U-S-A, U-S-A.? For one night at least, ?We Are the World? was more than just a song.
Outsports? complete coverage will continue through the Games. Check out our Opening Ceremonies notebook and extensive photo gallery . |
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