Olympic Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is an Australian professional beach volleyball player and an Olympic medalist, she is competing in her 5th Olympics.

Natalie Cook was born January 19, 1975 in Townsville, Queensland. She attended Corinda State High (located in the western suburbs of Brisbane). She enrolled in pre-medicine college courses at University of Queensland, and also took up volleyball, captaining the Australian Indoor Junior Team in 1992. In 1993 she began playing beach volleyball. In 1994 she went professional and gave up her pursuit of a medical degree.

Cook partnered with Kerri Pottharst to represent Australia at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, winning a bronze medal, the first time that beach volleyball was an Olympic sport.  That same year, the pair won a silver medal at the world championships, and came first in the World Tour Event in Japan.

Cook and Pottharst did not play together again until 2000 were finished third in the World Tour Events, held in France and Portugal, and then went on to participate in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. They dominated the competition, winning the gold medal. In the aftermath of their Olympic win, the pair were awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.  They were also included in the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball's Team of the Decade.

After the 2000 Olympics, Pottharst retired, and Cook found a new partner in Nicole Sanderson. They went on to win a bronze medal at the 2003 Beach Volleyball World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, and by the end of the 2003 world tour, were ranked fourth in the world. They were subsequently selected to represent Australia at the 2004 Athens Olympics. After a promising start, they finished out of medal contention, losing to teams from Brazil and the United States. For the 2008 Summer Olympics, Cook partnered with Tamsin Barnett, finishing fifth overall.

Cook is participating in her 5th Olympics in the 2012 London games. Returning gold medalist Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh of the U.S. defied a fierce onslaught from Cook and (Barnett) Hinchley in the first round of beach volleyball yesterday.

Cook currently resides in Tasmania and is married to fellow beach volleyballer Canadian Sarah Maxwell. In addition to her sporting career, Cook tours on the public speaking circuit and has launched her own beach volleyball-related business, Sandstorm.

An Out first via The Olympics.

Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”) caused a bit of a stir as artistic director for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. It was a lesbian kiss that stirred the most controversy, since the Olympics telecast is seen around the world, including in the 76 countries where it is still illegal to be gay.

The brief scene – marking the first-ever lesbian kiss on British television in 1994 on a prime-time soap called “Brookside” that ran on Britain’s Channel 4 from 1982 to 2003.  It came during the section of the opening ceremony that was called “Frankie and June Say … Thanks, Tim,” during which Boyle saluted the digital age in the U.K.

Controversy aside, the moment makes history as the first lesbian kiss seen around the world, including dozens of countries where being gay can be a death sentence