"Let The Games Begin..."

The Summer Olympics are now underway in London, England and this time around there are more openly gay athletes contending than ever before.  Outsports.com reports that there are at least 21 openly gay participants in London.

The number of openly gay and lesbian athletes at the 2012 London Summer Olympics is ahead of the totals for Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008, with all but three being lesbians.
There are 21 openly gay and lesbian London Olympians, plus two coaches.  There are also two gay Paralympians. This compares with 11 in Athens and 10 in Beijing, showing some progress in athletes being public about their sexual orientation, but still a low number.

Nevertheless, it's likely that the number of gay participants is significantly higher considering there are around 12,000 athletes in total and assuming a very conservative 1% being gay means there are probably at least 120+ gay contenders.

The Outsports list of 21 openly gay and lesbians Olympic athletes is here.

To all the athletes from around the world, Best Wishes! 

To those proudly out as well, Congratulations!  To those not, in celebrating your victories, consider how great an impact on equality your open acknowledgement of our shared humanity could be... 

"Fear Eats the Soul"