The fact that openly gay, 20-year-old Australian diver Matthew Mitcham won a gold medal in Beijing should not simply become an entry in a gay sports Wiki.

Mitcham is the first openly gay athlete to win gold in modern Olympic competition – the only man among 10,500 Olympic athletes who indicated publicly that he is gay.

This isn’t, of course, how Mitcham wants the world to remember him.

“I just want to be known as the Australian diver who did really well at the Olympics. It’s everybody else who thinks it’s special when homosexuality and elite sports go together,” Mitcham told reporters.

But we need to remember Mitcham as the first gold medalist to come out during the games, because it’s a golden opportunity for us to begin to eliminate the stigma about gay athletes.

There are plenty of other gay athletes, but few come out during their careers. This is because, aside from their fears of ostracism, some teams have “morals” clauses in their contracts that prevent it. Further, some countries criminalize the very status of being gay or lesbian.

Of course, for star athletes, coming out also risks jeopardizing endorsement contracts, which have caveats akin to morals clauses. We can be certain that if Michael Phelps, who has endorsement deals worth more than $100 million, made a YouTube video sans Speedo, he would lose much of that money. (Ironically, shortly after the 2004 Olympics, Phelps was charged with drunk driving. While this didn’t please his endorsers, they were probably relieved that his transgression was drunk driving and not something really horrible like getting caught in a hot tub with a gay guy.)

Consequently, managers steer athletes away from controversy, advising that even appearing sympathetic to gays risks financial losses in the endorsement game, and lawyers warn about stars who lose millions in potential endorsements simply because of their perceived sexual orientation.

Following Mitcham’s lead, we have the power to begin to change this sad state of affairs. The companies that pay the big bucks are not necessarily homophobic. But they don’t believe that parents will buy products for children and teens if those products are promoted by openly gay or lesbian athletes.

It’s the same reasoning companies once used when they refused to use black or Jewish athletes to endorse products. That changed because blacks and Jews exerted pressure in corporate boardrooms, and we need to do the same. GLBT power isn’t limited to boycotts; as directors and shareholders of publicly traded corporations, we have the power to change the system from within.

Mitcham’s victory in Beijing shouldn’t simply be a footnote in Olympic history; it should be a call to endorse our GLBT athletes.