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UPDATED: Missing Matthew Mitcham, Cheering Tom Daley: A Tale of Two Olympians

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Tom Daley Takes Center Stage at the Rio Olympics As 2008 Gold Medalist Matthew Mitcham Exits From Olympic Diving

In 2008, Matthew Mitcham stunned the world with his final dive in the ten-meter platform event at the Beijing Olympic games. With an extremely difficult dive (a risky two-and-a-half somersault with two-and-a-half twists) performed superbly, Mitcham earned the highest score in the history of the sport and secured the gold medal.

Of his great dive, NBC commentator Cynthia Potter declared, “Matthew Mitcham has done something that nobody in the world thought anybody in the world could do!”

However, as Linda Rapp has noted, NBC failed to report that Mitcham was the only openly gay man among the over 11,000 athletes at the Beijing games. The network also failed to show any reaction shots of Mitcham’s partner, Lachlan Fletcher, in the stands and relegated coverage of the subsequent medal ceremony to its web site.

But viewers of many other networks around the world saw Mitcham’s emotion as he realized that he had won the unexpected gold medal. As he exited the pool deck, he climbed into the stands and kissed both his proud and overjoyed partner and his supportive mother. (Fletcher was there as a result of a travel grant that Mitcham received from the Johnson & Johnson Support Program for Olympic athletes—the first time such an award had been granted to support the travel of a same-sex partner.)

Mitcham’s victory propelled him into the annals of great Olympic athletes. Australians voted him the Sports Performer of the year in 2008; Australian Post issued a stamp in his honor; and he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.

He also became a role model for gay athletes, a position he did not seek, but accepted graciously: “I never made the choice to be a role model, but as soon as somebody looks up to you or finds something in you that they like, you become one. And that’s something you either honor and respect or reject. I honor it.”

Mitcham’s openness about his homosexuality–“it wasn’t until I was totally honest about it all that it wasn’t a problem,” he said–was in stark contrast with the secretiveness of Australia’s other great Olympian, swimmer Ian Thorpe, who repeatedly denied his homosexuality until he finally came out in a highly touted interview on Australian television in 2014. After years of adamantly denying rumors that he was gay, in the interview Thorpe discussed the pain he experienced in coming to terms with his sexuality while also battling depression.

Despite Mitcham’s extraordinary performance in Beijing, he experienced difficulty finding major corporate sponsors until, in February 2009, he signed a deal with Telstra, an Australian communications company.

After the triumph in Beijing, Mitcham experienced a number of disappointments in his diving career, though he continued to compile a record that is the envy of other elite divers.

For example, in the 2009 World Aquatics Championship in Rome, he finished third in the ten-meter platform event that was won by teen British diving phenom, Tom Daley, who was just emerging on the world scene.

Posted by Matthew Mitcham on Monday, November 1, 2010

In the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, Mitcham won four silver medals, but again lost in the ten-meter event to Daley.

In 2011, Mitcham’s diving suffered as a result of an abdominal injury and an addiction to methamphetamine.

However, in December of that year, he returned to his old form and qualified to compete in the 2012 London Olympics. Unfortunately, there he narrowly failed to qualify for the finals in the ten-meter event.

As his diving career seemed to falter, Mitcham began a parallel career as an Australian television personality and cabaret entertainer.

But in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in August 2014, Mitcham ended his gold medal drought. He and Dominic Bedggood won the gold medal in the synchronized three-meter platform dive, edging out the English team of Tom Daley and James Denny, who won the silver medal. The following day, Daley won the gold medal in the ten-meter individual platform dive.

The achievement in the synchronized three-meter dive marked the first time in the history of the Commonwealth Games that two openly gay athletes have won gold and silver in an event, though, as pointed out above, in the 2010 Games–three years before Daley came out–he and Mitcham also finished first and second in the ten-meter competition.

Although some observers were looking forward to another match-up between Mitcham and Daley in the Rio Olympics, in January of this year Mitcham announced his retirement. Saying that he would concentrate henceforth on his media and entertainment career, Mitcham told the Australian Broadcasting Company News, “I have achieved everything I hoped for, including the big three–Olympic gold in 2008, world number one in 2010, and Commonwealth gold in 2014, which could never have happened without all the help I’ve had along the way.”

Mitcham is covering the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio for Australia’s Channel 7:

Enter Tom DaleyÂ

Mitcham was the only openly gay male athlete competing in the 2008 Olympics. In contrast, Tom Daley will be one of 11 openly gay male athletes competing in Rio, along with 33 female athletes who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or intersex. (For a list of these Olympians, see Outsports.)

Daley, however, is the only openly gay diver who will take to the platform in 2016. He will compete in at least two events, the men’s synchronized ten-meter dive, scheduled for Monday, August 8,  and the men’s ten-meter platform dive, scheduled for Friday, August 19.

The @teamgb #diving boys 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧, taking over the rings 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

Posted by Tom Daley on Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Despite his youth, the 22-year-old Daley is an experienced Olympian. At the age of 14, he competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he finished seventh in the ten-meter platform event and eighth in the ten-meter synchronized competition.

Daley came into his own in 2012, when he won several international and United Kingdom championships and became a favorite to win a medal at the London Olympics.

However, Daley and his partner in the synchronized diving event disappointed the home crowd by finishing in fourth place, thus increasing the pressure on Daley to earn a medal in the ten-meter platform competition.

In the ten-meter platform event, Daley became locked in an exciting contest with China’s Qiu Bo and the U.S.’s David Boudia, whom he led until the final dive. Unfortunately, Daley’s last dive had a lower degree of difficulty than the dives performed by Bo and Boudia, and they edged him out for the gold and silver medals. Still, his bronze medal was wildly celebrated by the London viewers and made Daley a British heartthrob.

Following the London Olympics, in October 2012, Daley easily triumphed in the World Junior Diving Championships in Australia. In 2013, however, his competitive diving was severely restricted by a triceps injury.

But Daley, who by now had become a television personality in the U.K., made news when he issued a wrenching YouTube video to announce that he was in a relationship with a man.Â

It was subsequently revealed that the man with whom Daley was involved was Academy Award-winning screenwriter and activist Dustin Lance Black. Black wrote the screenplay for Gus Van Sant’s  Harvey Milk biopic Milk (2008), and also served on the board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which sponsored the federal lawsuit against Proposition 8. Following the 2010 federal district court trial challenging Proposition 8 before Judge Vaughn Walker, Black wrote the play 8, based on actual events and testimony, in order to disseminate information about the historic trial.

☀️🇪🇸❤️🇪🇸☀️

Posted by Tom Daley on Monday, July 4, 2016

The two revealed their engagement in a tongue-in-cheek announcement in the October 1, 2015 Births, Marriages, and Deaths section of the (London) Times: “The engagement is announced between Tom, son of Robert and Debra Daley of Plymouth, and Lance, son of Jeff Bisch of Philadelphia and Anne Bisch of Lake Providence.”

Meanwhile, Daley worked hard to overcome a case of post-Olympic blues and an aversion to the difficult dive that propelled Matthew Mitcham to Olympic glory in 2008.

With a new coach, Daley developed a new “twister dive” that may make a difference to his success or failure in Rio. He continued a series of medal-winning performances in World Championship, British Championships, and other competitions and began training seriously for the Rio Games.

In the video below, Daley explains the deprivations an Olympian must endure even during Christmas in Los Angeles.

The following video, an excellent documentary from Britain’s ITV, charts Daley’s journey to Rio.

Daley will face stiff competition in Rio, especially from Chinese diver Qui Bo and 2012 gold medalist American David Boudia in the ten-meter platform competition; in the synchronized diving event Daley and Daniel Goodfellow (photo, below) will have to overcome the favored Chinese pair Lin Yue and Chen Aisen and the American duo David Boudia and Steele Johnson. But many of us will be cheering on Tom Daley.

4 more days til we leave for Rio. Getting those last few training days in 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

Posted by Tom Daley on Thursday, July 28, 2016

So too may Greg Louganis, who will also be in Rio, serving as an official athlete mentor of the U.S. diving team.

Louganis is widely regarded as the greatest diver in history. After having won a silver medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, he dominated diving competitions throughout the 1980s, winning two gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and two more at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Although he did not compete as an openly gay athlete, after his retirement he acknowledged both his homosexuality and his status as a person living with HIV.

Louganis knows well the hard work, discipline, and incredible dedication that it takes to become an Olympian. In addition, he knows from first-hand knowledge the bullying that both Mitcham and Daley experienced as adolescents. Although he will certainly fulfill his role as mentor to U.S. athletes at Rio, he will no doubt also have a special empathy for the particular challenges Daley faces as an openly gay athlete and wish him a spectacular Olympics.

UPDATE

On August 8, 2016, Daley and Daniel Goodfellow secured an Olympic bronze medal in the ten-meter synchronized diving event. They were propelled  past the rival Ukranian and German duos by performing two outstanding final dives. The Chinese team of Lin Yue and Chen Aisen dominated the event and won the gold medal; the American team of David Boudia and Steele Johnson took the silver medal.

In the video below, Daley remarks on winning the bronze in Rio.

Â

 UPDATE 2

On August 19, Daley led the field of the ten-meter platform competitors, finishing first in the preliminary round with an incredible score of 571.85. With such a performance, he became a strong favorite to win the gold medal in the event.

Alas, however, Daley bombed in the semi-finals on August 20, finishing last among the 18 divers who survived the preliminary round.Â

In an interview following his disastrous performance, Daley said he was heartbroken but was already looking forward to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

Image of Matthew Mitcham, Tom Daley via Facebook 

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News

‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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7 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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10 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

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