Burnt out and struggling with depression and anxiety, an up-and-coming Olympic hopeful drops out of his sport two years before the Beijing Games. His coach talks him into resuming training the year before the Olympics and he makes his country’s team which isn’t expected to fare terribly well against China’s powerhouse squad.

Indeed, the athlete performs poorly in his first event, failing to even make the semifinals. In his final event, however, and on his final attempt, he wins in an upset that not only denies China the gold medal, but by winning prevents a gold medal sweep by China in all eight of that sports events.

Now add to that the fact that the athlete also happens to have come out as gay less than six months earlier and is the only out gay male athlete at the games.

As if that isn’t significant enough, his victory is easily the highest profile win ever by a gay man in an Olympic event. Both his mother and partner are in the stands to witness his triumph, something they almost didn’t get to do until a grant from Johnson & Johnson financed their trip to Beijing.

Finally, after receiving his gold medal, he climbs into the stands ala tennis’ Patrick Rafter to kiss and hug his partner.

One couldn’t write a better script. Surely, that is an Olympic story that must be told, right? Not according to NBC.

The athlete in question is, of course, Australia’s Matthew Mitcham who snagged the gold medal in the Men’s 10 Platform Diving and did so on his final dive by posting the highest score ever given to a single dive during Olympic competition.

Curious why Matthew’s award ceremony and story weren’t gripping enough to make the NBC telecast (the medal ceremony was shown on their website) AfterElton.com spoke with Greg Hughes a spokesman for NBC Sports.

While the issue has been addressed and debated by various blogs and writers, until we contacted NBC they were unaware of the controversy. “I’m not aware of any controversy,” said Hughes. “Yours is the first call.”

When asked why at no point during the coverage did NBC mention Mitcham was gay or that his partner was in the stands, Hughes said, “In virtually every case, we don’t discuss an athlete’s sexual orientation.”

When it was pointed out that in fact the network does exactly that by telling viewers about Olympic athletes’ various spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and even in one case a heterosexual “love triangle” Hughes responded, “Not in every case. Not every athlete has a personal discussion. I could show you 500 athletes we didn’t show. We don’t show everyone. We don’t show every ceremony.”

But surely, taking into account Mticham’s stunning come-from-behind victory, the historical significance of his achievement as a gay man, and his own personal history, it seems unlikely the vast majority of those other athletes truly have as compelling a story as Mitcham. Said Hughes, “How do you know that? How do you know that someone on the rowing team doesn’t have as compelling a story?”

Usain Bolt, Luxin Zhou, Sanya Richards

Pressed that it was hard to believe that there truly any other athletes with stories as compelling as Matthew’s, especially ones who single-handedly prevented the Chinese from sweeping all of the gold medals in an entire sport, Hughes would only say, “It’s not possible to cover the entire personal story of every athlete regarding their performance. … It’s just not possible to single out coverage. “

After that, Hughes offered no further comment.

Anyone watching NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics is aware how much time the network devoted to many athlete’s personal stories: Michael Phelp’s record setting eight Olympic gold medals and his relationship with his mother, Usain Bolt’s gold medals and world records, and even Sanya Richard’s relationship with her fiancée who plays for the New York Giants.

Going into the final round, Mitcham trailed China’s Zhou Luxin by more than 30 points.

But Mitcham scored an astonishing 112.10 on his last dive — a back two and a half somersault with two and a half twists — to earn four perfect 10s and win the gold medal, with an overall score of 537.95 to Zhou’s 533.15.

Mitcham’s gold medal dive

Mitcham earned the highest scoring dive in the history of the Olympics with his sixth and final dive, and became Australia’s first male Olympic gold medallist in diving since 1924. His win earned Australia their second diving medal of the Games, and broke China’s long winning streak in Olympic diving.

Mitcham almost didn’t compete in the Games. He walked away from diving in 2006, battling depression and burnout, but returned to the sport 9 months later, determined to compete at the Olympics.

He came out in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald in May, citing his partner Lachlan as part of the "little support network has made my dream possible."

Although there are 13 openly gay or bi women among the competitors at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Mitcham is the only openly gay male athlete competing in the Games.

Up until the last dive, even Mitcham thought he had a slim chance at taking the lead from the Chinese. “I wasn’t even sure of my medal chances at all," he told reporters after the win. "After I did my last dive and I saw I was in first, I thought, “That’s it, it’s a silver medal, I am so happy with this’ and then I won. I can’t believe it, I’m so happy.”

Mitcham reacts to news of his gold medal win

“Coming back and doing everything that I did was to win an Olympic gold medal," he told reporters after the win. "That was my aim when I was training every single day, twice a day, 11 sessions a week, 30 hours a week, before every single dive, it was like `I want to win Olympic gold’ and that made me try my hardest in every single training session for the last year and a half."

Mitcham is awarded the gold medal

“It’s going to take a while to sink in," Mitcham added. "My cheeks hurt from smiling. My face hurts from the chlorine. My legs are sore from jumping up and down. I’m in pain and I’m tired. But I’m so happy.”

Celebrating the win