Openly gay powerlifter Chris
Morgan took home his third world gold medal last week in Russia,
the Federation of Gay Games announced Monday.
With lifts of 210 kg, 240 kg and 250
kg, Morgan clinched the World Drug-Free Powerlifting Championship
(WDFPF) in Moscow.
The British athlete is also the Gay
Games powerlifting champion.
“I'm absolutely delighted to have won
my third World 'Open' Gold Medal here at the World Drug-Free
Powerlifting Championships, completing my aim of winning back-to-back
World Championship titles,” Morgan said. “It has been my goal
since failing to regain my first world open title in 2005 to once
again win and then defend the World Open Championship. It feels very
satisfying to achieve something that I've never managed to do before
in my sporting career.”
Morgan will defend his Gay Games title
this summer in Cologne, Germany as the city hosts the quadrennial
event.
The road to Gay
Games 2010 officially kicked off in February
in San Francisco with the start of the International Rainbow Memorial
Run. In the run's first leg, New York activist Brent Nicholson
Earle carried a rainbow flag on a symbolic run from the AIDS Memorial
Grove located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to Kezar Stadium,
home of the first Gay Games in 1982.
The flag will travel around the globe
before reaching its final destination on July 31: Cologne's
RheinEnergie athletic field to lead the parade of athletes during the
Gay Games VIII's opening ceremony, which will be presided over by
Germany's
openly gay foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. Gay Games 2010 is
expected to draw up to 12,000 athletes and artists from more than 70
countries to participate in a unique sports and cultural festival.
Morgan also serves as a global
ambassador for the Federation of Gay Games.
“It fills me with great pride to be
arriving at this year's Gay Games in Cologne as a three-time World
Open Champion and to be representing the Federation of Gay Games as
one of their global ambassadors,” Morgan added.
On the Net: Gay Games 2010 is at
www.games-cologne.com.