| Last weekend, Calgary played host to one of the largest gay and lesbian sporting events in North America.
Apollo Friends in Sport just finished presenting their annual tournament, The Western Cup. This year marked the 24th annual Olympics-style competition and featured more than 500 athletes from across Canada and the United States competing in six different events – bowling, curling, volleyball, badminton, running and swimming.
Chris Pollock, a curler who competed as part of the team Master, says the tournament is his favourite event of the year, because it’s about more than just curling.
"I go to a lot of out-of-town bonspiels and this one is so good, just because with all of the different events, you get a really diverse group of people within the community," he says.
Of the 48 teams in this year’s bonspiel, 25 came from outside Calgary. According to Pollock, the ideal of camaraderie over competition is key to Apollo’s success and many of these teams travel here just to have a good time.
Apollo Friends in Sports was founded in Calgary in 1982, and has grown into one of the largest organizations of gay and lesbian athletics in the world. This year Apollo was joined by the Different Strokes swim club and the international gay and lesbian running club, Front Runners, which helped organize the swimming and running events, respectively.
Brad Bostock, director of the 2006 Western Cup, says that medals are awarded, but the focus of the event is much more on camaraderie and sportsmanship than it is on competition. Athletes don’t have to qualify for events, the competition is open to anyone who registers, and though the Western Cup consists mainly of gay and lesbian athletes, straight competitors are also welcome.
"There is no qualification based around athletic ability. If there was a qualification it would be based around respectful, honest, fair sportsmanship," Bostock says.
The Western Cup and Apollo take the ideals of sportsmanship very seriously, as the purpose of the organization is to provide an open and safe atmosphere for athletes to both compete and have a good time.
Athletes at these games are not only awarded the traditional gold, silver and bronze medals, but also less traditional awards, such as the princess award, which is given to the athlete who acts like the biggest princess throughout the curling competition.
At the end of Saturday’s competition, athletes had a chance to mix at the Heroes Dance, named for this year’s theme, Hero, Team and Community. "We look at our community as a collective, we look at teams and we look at the individual. Everyone is a hero in his or her own right. It may not be the individual that slays Goliath, but everyone who stands up and says ‘I’m proud of who I am,’ is a hero in their own right," says Bostock.
The Western Cup began as a challenge between a Calgary volleyball team and one in Edmonton. Bostock says that people are often surprised that an organization like Apollo has existed in such a conservative province for so long. He adds that this idea of ultra-conservative Alberta is largely a misnomer in the case of the larger cities (with some areas safer than others), but that there is truth to the stereotype in rural areas.
"It’s not about being rude, it’s not about arrogance or anything like that. It’s about a lack of education, because the only thing they see of gay culture and gay life is what you see on a pride float on a 30-second blurb on the news," Bostock says.
He adds that full acceptance for the gay community can only come through educating people that the difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals is no more than their sexual preference.
Former Olympic swimmer Mark Tewksbury launched his new memoir during the event and Bostock sees him as a very important figure in the fight for the acceptance of gay athletes.
"I think Tewksbury is an individual that has a very strong voice and he is educating in the last area where homophobia is still extremely rampant and that is organized sports."
Next year, the Western Cup is going to get even larger – not only is it the event’s 25th anniversary, but it will also combine with the international Outgames, which will have smaller continental games (like the Western Cup) running yearly, as a supplement to the larger event. For this, the first North American Continental Outgames, Bostock foresees a week-long citywide event, featuring all kinds of cultural, sporting and educational events. |
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