Fridae

A lot of pessimism preceded the 2002 Gay Games. Were they going bankrupt? Why did so many sponsors withdraw? Did the collapse of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras make Sydney a suddenly less suitable venue for such a big, gay event, and how many international tourists were going to put themselves through the interminable plane journey to get there? Wasn't the whole idea of a pride and visibility building "Gay Games" - conceived in the bygone era of the early 1980s - a little redundant?

The Gay Games had another image problem: comparisons to the much greater and far more glamorous Olympic Games. The build-up to the Gay Games in Sydney was uncannily similar to the lead up to the 2000 Olympics, replete with a cynical public, and a flustered organising committee having heart attacks on the hour, over the fear that the complicated event would flop and make Australia look like an end-of-the-earth backwater.

On the positive side, the marketing arm of the Sydney Gay Games deserve the gold medal for free association, using the fact that the Gay Games have more participants than the Olympics to claim that the Gay Games were going to be "bigger than the Olympics". (In fact, in the Gay Games, there are no performance cut-offs, so anyone who wants to compete can do so, in any sport. When I went to watch a friend compete in the swimming, I waited through 53 heats in the one event.)

But as was the case with the Sydney Olympics, the week or two before the big event saw everyone changing their mind and getting excited. Pessimism and cynicism went out the window. Bars and clubs pumped, foreign languages came out of every other mouth, and ticket sales went through the roof.

The 2002 Gay Games were fun and successful, and, for what they were, they were great. They brought a welcome international buzz to parochial Sydney, they ran without a hitch, didn't meet with scandal or protest, and brought an estimated AUD$100 million into the Australian economy (that's a lot).

Pity no one in the Australian media noticed any of this, as the entire event was relegated to the back pages of the newspaper or the end of the nightly news, if at all. But maybe this was one of the highlights of the Games as well - a blas� attitude from the media is better than a derogatory, tabloid sex-scandal approach that used to go with anything gay.

Maybe the Gay Games have done what their official statement of purpose says that they were conceived to do: "To foster and augment the self-respect of lesbians and gay men throughout the world and to engender respect and understanding from the non-gay world, primarily through an organised international participatory athletic and cultural event held every four years".

Or maybe times have changed a bit, and people really aren't so fussed over an organised public celebration of gay life. Whatever the case, it probably isn't such a bad thing that the Gay Games didn't really make a blip on the Australian media radar.

Anyway, the Gay Games had a kind of carnival atmosphere. They were part sporting event, part culture-building exercise, and part mobile global dating service. Make that a mostly mobile global dating service. I don't know what goes on at the post-Olympics or Commonwealth Games celebrations, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve as much crotch-stroking and topless cruising as went on amongst the twenty-thousand plus that attended Fox Studios' thumping Farewell Party.

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Despite that, athletic events were still taken seriously, with teams of officials, strictly enforced rules, and armies of participants who had flown from the other side of the world and who really want to do their best. Plenty of lesbians had Navratilova bodies, and plenty of the guys at the bars shunned alcohol, as it was barred from their training programs. Having said that, every other race contained at least one person who crossed the finish line half an hour after every one else, to warm, encouraging applause, and more than a few "hangover" murmurs were heard pre-game in a changing room or two.

Interestingly, participants in the Gay Games were not required to be gay or lesbian. Practicing what it preaches, the charter for the Gay Games says that athletes are welcome from any age, gender or sexuality. Of course, they will always be primarily an event for the gay community, but the Gay Games' all-welcome system should be the template for more big events, which always exclude most people for one reason or another.

The cultural festival outdid that of the Sydney Mardi Gras, with hundreds of shows, exhibitions and conferences taking place all over the city, from the Sydney Opera House to the suburbs. Some of them were great, like the Bondi Ballet, and some of them were amazing, like the photography exhibition that explored life and love in the age of AIDS. Another highlight was Bea Arthur from "The Golden Girls" performing her one-woman cabaret.

Sydney 2002 was the second time that the Gay Games had been held outside of North America, and the very first time the Games have been held in the Southern Hemisphere. Starting in 1982 in San Francisco, they were held there again in 1986, before moving to Vancouver, New York City, Amsterdam, and now Sydney. The Games will return to North America in 2006, when it is staged in Montreal.

What about the possibility of an Asian Gay Games? Teams from dozens of countries were represented in Sydney this year, but only a handful was from Asia. The majority of teams were, of course, from the United States, and some would argue that the Games, while ostensibly international, are a thoroughly American thing. Holding the Games in Amsterdam, Vancouver and Sydney is one thing, but how would Gay Games Singapore 2010 sound? Would it even be allowed to happen? What about Gay Games Bangkok, or even Gay Games Tokyo?

I just can't see it happening, because of cultural or linguistic barriers, prohibitive staging costs, or unsympathetic governments and councils. Even the Sydney Gay Games were given the civic cold-shoulder, receiving no governmental financial assistance, even when they were in dire straits, losing their corporate sponsors and facing bankruptcy.

Bidding for the Games is serious business, and, like the Olympics, choosing a winning city often comes down to which one has the most money, and who looks to be the most organised and the most capable. Kuala Lumpur may have recently staged the Commonwealth Games, but would a Malaysian Gay Games committee be confident or qualified enough to make a competitive bid? Given that the Vietnamese police have just arrested around thirty men for an "inappropriate gathering" (having sex at a local gym) what are the chances of fifteen thousand gay guys flying into Ho Chi Minh City anytime soon to congregate, celebrate and fornicate on every street corner, every day and night for a week?

Still, the Gay Games will always remain a great excuse for an overseas trip. See you in Montreal.