Of the nearly 11,000 athletes from around the world who have arrived in London and now eagerly await tonight's reportedly fanfare-filled Olympic opening ceremonies, only 22 are openly gay, according to the most recent OutSports report, as well as Mambaonline.
This dismally small number may be surprising considering speculation (though now debunked) that the influx of gay Olympians crashed gay mobile dating app Grindr. Furthermore, while numbers are low across the board, there is a particularly small number of openly gay males, as HuffPost Gay Voices blogger Josh Goodman has pointed out.
Nevertheless, the amount of out gay athletes does mark an improvement from past games -- there were only 11 out athletes in Athens and 10 in Beijing, according to OutSports. Futhermore, with some suggesting that gay and lesbian athletes from countries in which being gay is illegal should come out during the games and seek asylum in Britain, it's possible that these numbers may increase in the coming days.
Before the opening ceremonies, take some time to get to know those athletes who have come out, in spite of the all-too-common LGBT stigmatization in the world of sports. Keep track of them, and all the Olympic events, with Huffington Post's interactive Olympics schedule.
Update at 2:30pm on July 27: It was brought to our attention that there is another out Olympian, Karen Hultzer of South Africa, who has been added to the slideshow below. Also, in a previous version of the slideshow, a photo of Liezel Huber, not Lisa Raymond, was featured. This has been corrected.
Check out our slideshow of out London 2012 Olympic athletes below, and tell us who you are rooting for in the comments section. For more coverage of the 2012 London Olympics, click here.
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