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Out Olympian and Chef de Mission for Team Canada at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Mark Tewksbury.

While the U.S. brazenly appointed a homophobe as Chef de Mission for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, a misguided decision that resulted in Olympic medalist and supporter of Prop. 8 Peter Vidmar’s resignation from his post less than two weeks later, our neighbor to the north took the opposite tack and named an openly gay Olympian to head up their team. Mark Tewksbury, who burst onto the international scene following a thrilling come-from-behind victory in the 100-metre backstroke at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, was appointed Chef de Mission for the Canadian Olympic team, one of the delegation’s most prominent positions.

Chef De Mission is the title of the team manager for each participating country’s National Olympic Committee. The Canadian Olympic Committee selects their chef de mission to act as the official representative and spokesperson for their Olympic team. The position, required under the rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), serves as the main liaison with the IOC, the International Federations, and the Organizing Committees for the Olympic Games (which represents the host nation). Tewksbury is the first openly gay man to hold that position for any national team.

The Calgary native competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, taking home a silver medal for his efforts on Canada’s medley relay team. With that win, Tewksbury was ranked as one of the top backstrokers in the world, but as below-the-water swimming in his chosen stroke became more important, his ranking began to fall. By the time of the Barcelona Games, Mark was ranked fourth in the world and most assumed one of the powerful American swimmers would win the gold. His surprising victory, Canada’s first gold medal at the Barcelona Games and the first Canadian gold in swimming since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, placed him into the spotlight and landed him on the cover of Time Magazine as well as earning the honor of being named Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year.

Tewksbury retired from competitive swimming after the Barcelona Games, and came out publicly in December of the following. The first world-ranked Canadian athlete to come out, he lost a six-figure contract as a motivational speaker as well as lucrative endorsement deals because he was ‘too openly gay.’

Mark Tewksbury

The soon to be 44-year-old Tewksbury is still quite the stud.

During Tewksbury’s 16-year athletic career he won three Olympic medals, held seven world records, and was inducted into three major Halls of Fame. One of the few openly gay Olympic champions in the world, he is the author of three books, including Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock, and was the president of the 1st World Outgames held in Montreal.

Disenchanted with the rampant corruption in the International Olympic Committee, Mark resigned his position as an athlete representative in 1998 and cofounded OATH (Olympic Athletes Together Honorably), an organization devoted to holding the IOC accountable to its own ideals. Tewksbury, along with other former Olympic athletes, was among those who pushed for the resignation of IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, and became a prominent critic of the IOC, demanding reforms to the system, soon after the scandal surrounding the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic winter Games broke. Tewksbury’s appointment to head up Canada’s 2012 Olympic team is more surprising in light of his less than amiable relationship with the powers-that-be at the Olympics than is his sexuality.

“An issue became a non-issue — and that was the whole dream, right,” Mark said during a recent interview, stressing his sexuality was less of a controversy than his efforts at calling the IOC to task. “I wasn’t like a mad, angry militant, but I just had to be me. And unfortunately being me at that time meant taking this really big risk, but I’ve also seen that if you’re really true to yourself, you’re honest, you’re open, things somehow work out.”

Mark is well liked and popular among the young athletes he is to lead. He sees part of his role as Chef de Mission to be to instill in his team the drive to succeed, even amongst those not favored to medal.

“The fact that we’re two years out and I get to start talking to the athletes, I feel like there’s really enough time to share my story and have it make it a real impact, especially on those athletes that might be coming from behind but just need to know it’s been done before,” he said during an interview in late 2010. “I’ve been there and I turned a career that wasn’t really iconic into a championship in less than a year.”

Tewksbury finishes for the gold in Barcelona.

Tewksbury credits his winning gold in Bracelona to the empowerment he felt resulting from having come out to his coach just months before the games and having received her unwavering support. When asked if closeted competitors had come out to him recently, he said, “Sure, on a very private, intimate level there’s been lots of people that have come out. And some surprising ones. I never would’ve thought that this person was a lesbian or this person was a gay man, and it’s been great. It’s been nice to have that and just to sort of empathize with them and feel their pain a little bit.”

His own road to acceptance, both personal and publicly, was not an easy one. During his younger years, in an effort to avoid facing the truth about his sexuality, Mark poured his energy into swimming. In junior high school, some of his classmates who had guessed his secret made life difficult. They vandalized his locker, scrawling anti-gay slurs on it. When his parents confronted the principal about the bullying going on at his school, he suggested the best solution was for Tewksbury to transfer to a different school. The rumors followed Mark to his new school and things became worse. At one point, he considered suicide. But swimming remained a salvation and by high school he was one of the best swimmers in Canada.

As far as calling on his fellow athletes to open their closet doors and become openly gay role models for others, Mark says, “ I’m never one to push people past a point that they’re comfortable with. I think that to be a really good gay role model or lesbian role model, you have to be ready to do it, and it is not fair to put that banner on somebody that isn’t comfortable in their own skin yet.”

Though expectations are high due to Canada’s performance at the last Winter Games, ever the realist Mark aid off the bat they need to be tempered for 2012, the stated goal of a top 12 national finish being lofty enough. His reluctance to sugarcoat things and personal integrity are among the characteristics that make him a popular choice as team manager as well as a role model for gay athletes.

[‘The XXX Games’ are a series of posts about hot Olympians, gay competitors – both present and past – and general articles about the 2012 London Olympics of interest to gay men. So, yeah, lots of hot male eye candy. Click the XXX Games graphic below for additional news, stories, and pictures.]

The XXX Games of the Olympiad