You do not have to be a particularly good athlete to take part in Sydney's Gay Games.  You do not even have to be gay. "We don't discriminate," said the CEO of the Games, Geoffrey
Williams.  

"We'll take straight people, and we don't want only people who want to break a world record.  We will be happy with whoever turns up."   Happy is probably an understatement.  Williams, who has been at the helm of the Games since June, will likely be ecstatic just to see them go ahead, since, as recently as two weeks ago, the event (often referred to as "bigger than the Olympics") was at risk.

       Sydney won its bid to host the Games in 1997.  Since then, there have been a series of management and sponsorship problems, culminating in a leaked memo that said Sydney had problems that "cannot be overestimated". 

       The memo, posted on Outsports.com, a Los Angeles website devoted to gay people and sport, said Sydney might have to scale down the Games or lose them to another city.  Alternatively, they might not be held at all. 

       The news was reported on the front page of 'The Sydney Morning Herald', but was quickly denied by Williams, who said the leaked memo reflected frustration between the Federation of Gay Games and former board members, four of whom have since been replaced. 

       "The Games were never at risk, and aren't at risk now," said Williams.  "There was no evil intent, I'm sure, but it was naive, and there was thoughtlessness in the way it was written.  There was a bit of a tight, financial situation, and a huge amount of work being done by just a few people.  So it was an unsettled time, but we've changed gear now.  We're back on track."

       The first Gay Games was held in San Francisco in 1982.  The Sydney Games will be the sixth.  Organisers are expecting 11,500 athletes to compete in 31 sports, and inject A$100million into the New South Wales economy.  In order to sell sponsorship, they rely heavily on a new idea, that gay people are themselves a market that can be exploited.

       Asked if he was worried about the number of sponsors the Sydney Games had managed to attract, Williams said: "I'm not worried about the ones we have. I love them.  I want to marry all of them.  I'm worried about the ones we don't have."       

 Williams wants to have between seven and 10 major sponsors (it has three: Qantas, Aussie Bodies and City of Sydney), a principal or naming sponsor (it does not yet have one) and a group of other, smaller sponsors, such as the car rental company Hertz, which is already on board.  The man who posted the leaked memo, Jim Buzinski, wonders whether large, mainstream companies will chase the "pink dollar".

       "I can see why companies might say: why should we support the Gay Games, when we can reach these customers through the mainstream media?" he said.  "But, that said, there are quite a few companies, especially clothing and alcohol companies, that are very clearly identified with the gay community, and are successful as a result."

       Of Sydney's readiness, Buzinski said: "I have my concerns, as do a lot of people.  There's been turmoil on the board, and they don't have enough sponsors.  But the new CEO sounds like a good bloke, as you say in Australia."

       One of the original sponsors of Sydney's Games was the failed Satellite group, which collapsed after a disastrous "pink" float on the stock exchange.  Despite this, former managing director Greg Fisher believes there is a "pink dollar". "It's out there, but it needs something tangible to attach itself to," he said. 

       Before it went broke (and before Fisher faced criminal charges associated with its collapse), Satellite had intended to sponsor the Games. "I'm surprised more companies haven't," he said.  "The Games are getting gay people from all over the world, so where are the credit card companies, and so on?"

       At the same time, he believes "gay culture" is not as removed from the mainstream as it once was.  "The Australian community has become very accepting of gay people.  Remember when the Mardi Gras was a protest march, the idea was that gay people wanted to be part of the mainstream, and that's now happened.  There is still a gay culture, but gay people are also
much more part of the community." 

       This is particularly evident in Oxford Street, once the "gay Mecca" in Sydney but now positively mainstream.  The infamous Albury Hotel, once the home of street-level drag shows, is losing its bottom bar to retail. Another well-known gay pub, the Beauchamp, is awaiting conversion to an Irish pub.

       The Oxford Hotel, which used to be a gay pub, now has pokies.  Oxford Street icon Dawn O'Donnell, who owns the Imperial Hotel, where the drag scenes from 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' was filmed, said Sydney's "pink strip" had outgrown itself.  "It's a victim of its own
success," O'Donnell said.  "We've still got to do part of Priscilla every Friday night, but the audience isn't gay anymore.  It's completely mixed." 

       Marcus O'Donnell, who edits Sydney's main gay newspaper, the 'Sydney Star Observer', said there was "every chance the Games will be a spectacular success.  Sydney has a lot of experience in putting on big events, and gay events, and if anyone can produce a spectacular Gay Games, it ought to be Sydney."

       He concedes there have been problems.  "But put it in context.  A year out from the Gay Games in Amsterdam and New York, they didn't have big sponsors on board either."

       The trouble with that analogy is that Amsterdam never got the sponsors it needed: the Games was almost cancelled three days before they were due to start, before the city council agreed to a massive injection of funds.  O'Donnell does not know anybody who intends to compete but does not think the 11,000 athletes prediction is optimistic.

       "I do know many people who compete in gay track and field clubs," he said.  "That doesn't necessarily fit the stereotype of gays and lesbians, but it's a reality.  As the slogan used to be: we are everywhere."