It’s not too late to pretend to be lesbian tennis star Amelie Mauresmo for a day and sign up to the tennis tournament for the Melbourne Outgames.
Tennis participants will strut their stuff on hallowed ground as Melbourne Park, home to the Australian Open, has been secured as the official Outgames venue. The Tennis Victoria sanctioned event will be held over three days. Details: www.melbourneoutgames.org
SILENCING GAY ATHLETES
The recent Play the Game sports conference in Reykjavik, Iceland addressed the issue if discrimination agaist gay athletes in sport. Canadian Roger LeBlanc, a leading researcher in the field of gay athletes from Moncton University, addressed a growing concern, which he refers to as “the conspiracy to silence gay athletes”.
“Many homosexuals stop doing sport in their teenage years because they feel tyrannised or left out by their team players. In defiance of that, homosexuality is getting more acceptable in society, it doesn't seem to be the case in the athlete world. Primarily in male contact team sports,” he said in his speech. LeBlanc and the forum organisers encourage athletic organisations to help end discrimination by allowing open door policy’s of discussing discrimination issues.
GREEN GAMES
The Asia Pacific Outgames is doing its bit to ‘green up’ the event by asking interstate and international travellers to offset their carbon emissions through not-for-profit organisation Climate Positive.
Climate Positive offsets the carbon-dioxide footprint of competitors through purchasing verified emission reduction offsets, the money from which is used to establish biodiverse forest ecosystems.
Details: http://www.climatepositive.org; www.melbourneoutgames.org 
