Matthew Mitcham is now a married man.
The Olympic gold medalist, who famously came out publicly as gay just months before the 2008 Summer Games, married Luke Rutherford in a private ceremony in Belgium last week. Reports put the wedding attendees at about 50 friends and family, though some members of Mitcham’s family were unable to make the trip.
“The whole thing was so beautiful,” Mitcham told the Daily Telegraph. “I was crying for basically the entire ceremony.”
The two met in Australia a couple of years ago when Rutherford was on a road trip, according to Out In Perth.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
“Now he’s stuck with me forever and ever,” Mitcham wrote on Instagram.
After the wedding, the newlyweds headed to Amsterdam, where Mitcham shared this “afterglow” post:
Mitcham became a part of history in 2008 when he won an Olympic gold medal in the 10-meter platform in Beijing, as the only publicly out gay male athlete at the Beijing Games. In his incredible gold-medal performance, Mitcham performed the highest-scoring dive in Olympic history. He retired from diving in 2016.
You can check out some of the beautiful photos taken by photographer John McRae:
In other Mitcham news, the Olympic champ will be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in April. If you want to be part of the weekend celebrating Mitcham’s accomplishments, as well as other swimming and diving heroes, the Hall is in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. and tickets are available by clicking here.
