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No word yet from the gay swimming championships held over the weekend, but the Atlanta Rainbow Trout headed to the competition with high expectations.

More than 40 members of the gay swim squad took part in International Gay & Lesbian Aquatics Championships, held June 18-22 in Washington, D.C. Last year, the Trout took gold in the small team division for only the second time in the club’s history, while the polo team took bronze for the first time. Team members also collected 16 individual medals.

“We are hopeful,” Sean Fitzgerald (photo), the Trout’s president, said before the competition. “You never know until you get there who everyone has.”

Fitzgerald also took with him a personal goal of winning medals in an individual event, a relay and with the water polo team. He’s attended the championships since 1995 and last year took second place in the 50-meter freestyle.

“I’ve never thought of not going,” he said. “From the first one when I walked on the deck, I just knew that’s where I’m supposed to be.”

The race is on to suit up swimmers for the Beijing Summer Games.

That’s good news for competitors squeezed into Speedo’s LZR Racer, who have broken 38 world records since its introduction in February, and bad news for fans of the hunk factor found at every Olympics.

Speedo’s technological marvel, though, is – excuse the pun – causing waves in the swimming world, dividing those who favor the suit and the alleged two percent advantage it delivers against those who argue the application of thin polyurethane panels on the Racer breaks the rules.

For years, the trend was to make swimsuits that covered as little skin as possible - high-cut legs and wide-open backs for women, tiny boomerang-shaped numbers for men. But allowing bodysuits before the Sydney Summer Olympics in 2000 reversed that trend, increasing the potential for new technology.

For its work on the LZR Racer, Speedo conducted tests on a host of materials with NASA wind tunnels used to determine surface friction on spacecrafts re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The swimsuit features a “compression zone” around the torso and other parts of the body, allowing swimmers to conserve energy by reducing muscle and skin vibration.

Michael Phelps (photo right) wears the Racer; in fact, he was one of the Olympians that helped roll it out in February. French swimmer Alain Bernard (photo above) also sports the suit. Both cases highlight my argument that although the Racer makes swimmers faster, it makes them a whole lot less sexy.

If we can’t enjoy – and by enjoy, I mean see – the bulges and ripples that make men’s swimming events in the Olympics so sexy, then what’s the point?

The summer of championships has arrived.

Several gay sports leagues hold international competitions in the coming weeks, chief among them is the International Gay & Lesbian Aquatics Championships in Washington, D.C., later this month.

About four-dozen swimmers and water polo players from the Atlanta Rainbow Trout are headed to the competition, looking to better their performance from last year, when the organization overall took gold, the waterpolo team took bronze and several participants won individual medals.

And while the swimmers head to D.C., the Decatur Women’s Sports League is taking a less-competitive approach to offering its newest sport – tennis – and starting a second season of bowling. Bowling opened on Wednesday while tennis starts on June 13.

I talked with Sean Fitzgerald, the president of the Trout, and Anne Barr, the founder of the Decatur league, for my Southern Voice sports column this week. Read the full story.

Diver Matthew Mitcham is a favorite for a medal in the Beijing Olympics this summer. Like most of the athletes he’ll join, he brings a compelling story to the competition but one with a twist that, unfortunately, probably won’t be repeated this summer.

He’s doing what no Australian athlete – and few others from across the globe – have done by taking part in the Olympics as an openly gay competitor. Mitcham, 20, came out during a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald and talked about his struggles with his sexual orientation, his training regime and efforts to bring his boyfriend with him to the event.

“I look at the last 20 years as a long, winding path of lessons and some hardship. I hope the rest of my life isn’t straight because that could be boring. I hope it continues to wind, but maybe not so tumultuous.”

In its take on the story, Outsports shows how unique it is for an Olympic athlete to come out:

Multi-gold medalist Greg Louganis came out after his Olympic career ended in 1988. American David Pilcher competed while openly gay at Syndey in 2000. In the 2004 Athens Games, Outsports was able to document 11 openly gay and lesbian athletes.

Add to that list Bruce Hayes, the former Atlantan who won gold in the 1984 Olympics and later came out. In 1990, he became the first Olympic gold medalist to compete in the Gay Games.

Photo: Steve Cristo, Sydney Morning Herald

Speedo’s new high-tech suit, which makes swimmers faster yet a whole lot less sexy, is now entangled in a lawsuit.

Call it sour grapes – the legal twist was filed against Speedo by competitor TYR Sport last week – but the lawsuit might have a point: Swimmers wearing the one-piece, full-body LZR Racer have taken 36 of the 40 world records broken since it was unveiled.

The LZR Racer hit the swimming world in February, when Speedo paraded a handful of Olympic swimmers through a press conference to show it off. Included among the athletes was Michael Phelps, who gets a $1 million bonus from Speedo if he wins the seven golds he wants to snatch at the Beijing Olympics this summer.

The suit, though, is not bringing sexy back. In fact, it made Phelps lose the luster (and package) that’s made gay men swoon since his first Olympics.

Back to the lawsuit, according to the New York Times:

In documents filed in United States District Court for the Central District of California, TYR describes a climate in which elite athletes have been led to believe they cannot excel on the world stage unless they wear Speedo’s newest high-tech suit, which was designed with the help of NASA and was unveiled in February.

Olympian Erik Vendt (photos), a former TYR spokesmodel, is included in the suit for allegedly breaching his contract by wearing the Speedo lawsuit at an event earlier this year. Want to know a little more about Vendt? Check out this Q&A with SlowTwitch.

Naked is the news today. And it’s all sports related.

On Sunday, about 1,800 people bared all for photographer Spencer Tunick, no stranger to mass nude events. They stripped naked at the stadium in Vienna that will host several stages of the Euro 2008 soccer finals in late June.

Tunick says on his web site that he wants to capture the spirit of sports, the sweeping nature of stadium architecture and the relation of human form to modern structures. But, he says, don’t expect him to stage such an event anytime soon in the U.S.:

“My work is a little edgy. It is tough for me to get permission to do things in the U.S.”

Then there are the naked swimmers fighting to go nude in the city pools of Seattle. They are nudists, you see, and they pitch their cause as a fight for greater freedoms and access.

“My personal feeling is that the discrimination and fear of the human body is one of greatest discriminations there is,” says Richard Cummings, a 63-year-old Seattle resident and member of the Body Freedom Collaborative. “The film and magazine industries have tried to make nudism equal sex. It is not. It is a state of undress.”

Pool officials don’t seem too bothered by the baring of it all. They did, though, make sure lifeguards working the naked sessions were at least 21, a move that the nudists complain has limited the number of available guards and thus, their swims.

Then, there’s the Australian Rules Football and Rugby League players who are baring mostly all for a new calendar. It’s for charity, for goodness sakes. Proceeds from “Naked for a Cause” benefit breast cancer research. Now there’s a making-of-the calendar video. (Thanks to Outsports for unearthing this.)

When it comes to discovering a vaccine to fight HIV, the hard work usually takes place in laboratories with scientists wearing lab coats.

The organizers behind the 6th Annual Action Cycling 200 next month have a different idea. The cyclists, clad in Spandex and wearing helmets, want to do their part by raising money to support the Emory Vaccine Center, home to one of the largest basic and preclinical vaccine research programs in the U.S. It was the first to put an AIDS vaccine in clinical trials.

“I want to be a part of finding a cure for AIDS with my small contribution,” says Todd Wiggins, a co-founder of the event and race director. “I also see how people get inspired by what we’re doing. We’ve created this event that is challenging and it pushes people and shows them what they are capable of.”

I talked with organizers, who launched their first Action Cycling event in 2003, for my Southern Voice sports column. The piece also includes details from a recent fund-raiser for the event by members of the Atlanta Rainbow Trout. Read the full story. 

Finding a handful of gay swimmers in the pool at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center on any given Sunday isn’t too surprising. It is, after all, one of the Atlanta Rainbow Trout’s regular practice sessions inside the former Olympic venue.

But on April 13, a handful of the Trout worked two lanes in the main pool for an hour with a special purpose in mind – raising funds for the 6th Annual Action Cycling 200 next month. A team of the Trout – Fish Out of Water – held a Trout-A-Thon  Sunday morning, an event that raised more than $1,200 for the team as swimmers logged nearly 20 miles in the pool.

The event on Sunday boosted Fish Out of Water’s total fundraising to more than $3,500 with the race still several weeks away, according to Jeremy Ploessel, a Trout member and lead organizer of Fish Out of Water.

Action Cycling 200, set for May 17-18, raises money for the Emory Vaccine Center.

Is there a better way to spend a lazy Sunday morning than to watch jocks in their Speedos? I thought not.

A handful of members of the Atlanta Rainbow Trout will hit the water for about an hour on Sunday to raise money for Fish Out of Water, the team they assembled to take part in a cycling fund-raiser next month. So bring your wallet or checkbook and be ready to give as they take to the pool for the Trout-A-Thon. You can donate a fixed amount or pledge a per lap donation.

Fish Out of Water hopes to raise about $1,200 through the event to help reach their overall goal of $3,000 for the 6th Annual Action Cycling 200. The cycling event, set for May 17-18, raises money for the Emory Vaccine Center. Last year, the event donated about $65,000 to the center and more than $300,000 since its inception.

“You don’t find too many organizations that put on an event like that and have the ability to donate 100 percent of the money raised back to the beneficiaries,” says Jeremy Ploessel, a Trout member and lead organizer of Fish Out of Water. “It is a pretty amazing organization.”

The event begins at 11 a.m. at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.

Quick hits on what’s happening in Atlanta’s gay sports world this weekend:

RODEO: The Georgia Gay Rodeo Association is staging a comeback. New leaders have put the organization’s fatigue behind it and want to reintroduce it to the public. To help, GGRA scheduled an Indoor Play Day on Saturday at 8 p.m. It’s a safe and fun indoor rodeo on the dance floor of the 3-Legged Cowboy, ready-made for beginners, according to the Brad Bruner (photo), the group’s president.

“It is easy and there is no skill involved. It’s a great way to come meet the rodeo community without getting dirty or injured,” Bruner said.

For more details about the event, read my recent Southern Voice column about the gay rodeo group.

SOFTBALL: The Atlanta Wet Demons of the Hotlanta Softball League hosts a beer bash and fund-raiser Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Joe’s on Juniper. For $10, drink all the beer you can while raising money for the team, which is splitting proceeds with YouthPride.

FLAG FOOTBAL: A little snow and cold weather led to the rescheduling of the National Flag Football League of Atlanta’s spring camp to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Peachtre Hils Park. Learn the basics of the sport, meet league officials and get tapped for a team. The league opens its season March 22.

OUTDOORS: Gay and lesbian outdoors groups are kicking into high gear. The Wilderness Network of Georgia heads to Pickett’s Mill Battlefield on Saturday, with a cycling trip following on March 22. The Women’s Outdoor Network hosts a bike ride in Atlanta on Saturday, with a moonlight hike up Stone Mountain next weekend.

SWIMMING: The Atlanta Rainbow Trout hits the pool this weekend to take part in the local St. Patrick’s Day Invitational. It’s one of several meets the gay swim league has scheduled in the coming weeks.