10 Gay Olympians Win Medals In London, Tie Jamaica And Iran In Gold Medal Count

Ten publicly out gay and lesbian Olympians are taking home medals from these Olympic Games in London, most of them gold.

If Team Gay was a country, it would have finished 31st overall with seven medals, tied with Mexico, Ethiopia and Georgia. They would have beaten the medal count of such countries as Jamaica, Ireland, Argentina and India. They would have finished 21st overall for most golds (four), tied with Iran, Jamaica, Czech Republic and Korea.

The overall medal count is different from the number of athletes who won medals, because the standings would count all four gold medals from the Dutch women's field hockey team as one medal.

The 2012 openly gay Olympic medal winners are:

• GOLD: Seimone Augustus, USA, Basketball. The U.S. women's basketball team was arguably the most dominant team in any sport at these Olympics.
• GOLD: Carl Hester, Great Britain, Equestrian. Hester and his two teammates won Great Britain's first-ever Team Dressage gold. Hester finished fifth overall in the individual competition.
• GOLD: Marilyn Agliotti, Carlien Dirkse van den Heuvel, Kim Lammers, Maartje Paumen, Netherlands, Field Hockey. The Dutch women beat Argentina, 2-0, in the gold medal match. Paumen and Dirkse van den Heuvel scored the team's two goals.
• GOLD: Megan Rapinoe, USA, Soccer. The Americans beat Japan, 2-1, in the gold medal match. Rapinoe had a key pass in the game. She also had two big goals in the semifinal match. Coach Pia Sundhage is also openly lesbian.
• SILVER: Judith Arndt, Germany, Cycling. Arndt was the first out athlete to win a medal in London, taking silver in the road race time trial.
• BRONZE: Edward Gal, Netherlands, Equestrian. Gal was on the bronze-medal team for Team Dressage; He finished ninth overall in the individual event.
• BRONZE: Lisa Raymond, USA, Tennis. Raymond and partner Mike Bryan won the mixed doubles bronze medal.

Over 43% of the out athletes (10 of the 23) won a medal in these Olympic Games. That's over double the percentage of athletes overall who won medals: 20%. Team Gay outperformed the percentage of Team USA athletes with medals, 39% of which is taking home hardware. A whopping 58% of all openly gay, lesbian or intersex Olympians over the years have won a medal, which is an incredible statistic.

We hear that some athletes don't want to come out because of how it will affect their performance. That argument just doesn't hold anymore. Rapinoe came out weeks before the Olympic Games; She won gold and contributed in a big way to her team's win. Augustus came out publicly in the last year; Same result.

The argument that athletes can't come out for fear of performance on a team is destroyed by the result of these Olympic Games.