In Vancouver the sense of camaraderie and community was a part of the entire celebration. I signed up for community housing and was placed on the East Side, just off Commercial Drive-a lesbian haven that is Vancouver's answer to Oakland or Park Slope in Brooklyn-with a freespirited lesbian, her roommate, and her young son. We'd sometimes eat breakfast together, and they would listen intently as I reported on the progress of my soccer team or shared the jittery feelings I was having about my upcoming track races. Some nights, after competing, I'd wander to a neighbor's house, where members of the Parisian basketball team were staying, and a group of us would hitch a ride to a poetry reading, theater performance, or any of the other events offered as part of the cultural festival. On my last day of track competition, I looked up in the stands and was overjoyed to see both the French basketballers and the young boy. from the house cheering as our four-woman 400-meter relay team won a silver medal.

Now, as I am training for Gay Games IV, I find myself wondering how the sense of camaraderie and community we felt in Vancouver will carry over to the harsh reality of New York City. When I listen to organizers making predictions about the multitudes of lesbians and gay men that will flood into the city, and when I hear people like David Mixner saying that the Games will "knock down the walls of prejudice and bigotry," I sincerely hope that all of us who are participating as athletes, organizers, and volunteers can put the hype aside and find some way to retain the spirit and integrity that have been at the core of the three previous Gay Games.

Y TRIP TO THE SECOND GAY GAMES, in San Francisco in 1986, remains one of the most important and moving weeks in my life. I had heard about the Games after the United States Olympic Committee sued over the use of the word Olympics. (The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the USOC in 1987, a few weeks before Gay Games founder Tom Waddell died of AIDS.) Word had spread among the lesbians in my New York City soccer league, and we threw together a team and a plan to compete in San Francisco that August. Our team was based more on will than skill: Anyone who wanted to go, who could make it to our few practices, and who had the money for the trip, or was willing to raise it, became a team member. And since I had been a high school and college runner, I decided that I might as well dust off my cleats and train for the hurdles and other track events.

Almost all of us ended up booking the same flight to San Francisco, so we met at the airport, where, with our various forms of Team New York clothing, sports bags, and athletic shoes in tow, we looked like an older version of all my high school teams. We sat together during the flight, whipping ourselves into a low-level frenzy of excitement about the week to come.

What is most memorable about our soccer team's performance, however, was just how short-lived it was. After a year of begging our friends to attend fund-raisers and buy balloons, Team New York lost its first two games, and we were bounced out of the soccer competition two days after Linda Villarosa, an editor at Essence, is completing a black women's health book for HarperCollins.

our arrival. We were pretty disappointed, but vowed to meet for a consolation tournament with the other losing teams later in the week. In the meantime, with parties every night and queers swarming over the Castro, there was plenty to keep us busy.

When we hooked up for the match, it was hard not to notice that several of my teammates were snuggling with women I'd never seen before. As it turned out, five women had new girlfriends, and practically everyone else who was single was on the prowl. By the end of the week one of our teammates had decided to move to San Diego with her new babe, and another player had fallen so in love that she decided to blow off not only her return flight, but also her job and apartment in New York.

ITH TRACK RACES TO RUN, I was one of the few who didn't have time to be on the make. As the day of my hurdles race drew nearer, I became increasingly nervous. Al-

though I had been working with the track

team, it finally dawned on me that I had not jumped over a hurdle since my last college race, six years earlier. I lived in New York City, where there are few public tracks, much less sites with hurdles, and I had just assumed that it would all come back to me-like riding a bicycle, as the cliché goes. But once I entered the stadium in Golden Gate Park and glanced at a hurdle across the track, my mind filled with hysterical, irrational thoughts. What if I couldn't finish, and humiliated myself in front everyone I'd ever met and everyone they'd ever met? My anxiety built: Why did I think I could do this? If I hadn't been on a bicycle in six years, maybe I couldn't ride a bike either.

By the time my race was called, I was a complete wreck. I had spent the hour before my race stretching and warming up, while furtively eyeing every tall, fit woman in the arena and wondering if she would be running in my race. When it was finally time to go to the starting line, two other women stepped up with me. "OK, calm down," I thought to myself. "Even if you totally bomb, you'll get third place." That made me feel better, so I loosened up by leaping over the first two hurdles. "Thank God, that felt fine," I thought, as my confidence began slowly to return.

In a few minutes the warm-up was over, and the starter approached us. "On your marks," he said, raising the gun. My stomach lurched as I got into position. “Get set," he said, as I forced myself not to wonder whether I could make it over all the hurdles without blowing my steps. And then the gun went off.

I was so anxiety-ridden that my body didn't respond to the starter's pistol right away, and I watched for one horrible second as the other two women sprinted toward the first hurdle. I took off a beat later, focusing my mind on each hurdle and the three, sometimes five, steps in between. After the last hurdle, I dug my toes into the track as I ran and pumped my arms as hard as I could till I leaned across the finish line. With extreme relief just to have made it, I turned around and saw that I had finished far ahead of the other two competitors, who were still leaping the last hurdles.

I was ecstatic at winning, and proud as I felt the heavy medal being placed around my neck. But even more memorably, I was moved by the performance of one of my track teammates, Donna Roberts. In the months leading to the Games, Donna and her lover, Leonora, rarely missed a

OFFICIAL SOUVENIR PROGRAM

HEADING FOR THE BIG APPLE: Marathoners stride along the Seawall in Vancouver's Stanley Park during Gay Games III.

team practice, even though they were probably the slowest runners. But they made up for their lack of skill with enthusiasm-especially Donna, who was a little chunky and wore thick glasses she needed to avoid being classified as legally blind. At age 32 she would be racing on the track for the first time.

It was warm but windy on the day of Donna's five-kilometer race. Once the gun went off, she began shuffling along, her eyes focused on the white lines of her lane. After the first three of 12.5 laps she dropped near the back of the pack, moving slowly but with determination. At lap five she moved from the inside to an outside lane to allow Sue Foster, our teammate and the eventual winner, to whiz past her. Several other women lapped her as she continued to slug along, concentrating on each step. Donna still had a lap and a half to go as the second-to-last woman crossed the line.

I was sitting in the stands next to Leonora, the two of us cheering Donna, who seemed oblivious to the fact that she was running by herself. As she moved into the final lap, all of Team New York was on its feet, screaming encouragement to her, and soon everyone in the stadium was chanting and shouting for Donna. Buoyed up, with about 300 meters to go, Donna lifted her head toward the finish and began pumping her arms and legs harder than ever. As the crowd continued to roar, she crossed the line, flinging her arms in the air.

Not long ago I asked Donna how she had felt as she was finishing that last lap. "It was really exciting, but mostly I just thank God that I finished," she answered. "There is nowhere in the world where someone like me could run a race and have everyone in the stands clapping and cheering for me."

GAY GAMES IV

OW, EIGHT YEARS LATER, as I'm lacing up my shoes to do an interval training session in the park near my house, the phone rings and the voice on the other end identifies himself as a volunteer from the Gay Games office. He begins describing this June's upcoming historic event and the many New York City venues where the sporting events will be held. Next he explains the Cultural Festival, featuring big names like dancer Bill T. Jones, as well as local music, film, theater, and performance art. "How much can you give?" he asks, finally.

For me, the importance of the Games isn't about the record number of entries the competitions have received or the many press clips describing yet another sponsor who has signed on to this "unparalleled opportunity to reach the affluent gay and lesbian community." It isn't about luring celebrities like Martina, Billie Jean, and swimmer Bruce Hayes, an Olympic gold medalist, into promoting the event, or worrying about whether the mayor will endorse or condemn what we're doing. For me, the Gay Games are about spending three months every four years training as hard as I can for a 15-second race. The Games are about the soccer team getting together to practice, and vowing to do better than our fifth-place finish in Vancouver. Most important, the Games are about giving standing ovations to athletes like Donna Roberts (she's switched from track bowling this year), who may be running a race or joining a team for the first time after years of shying away from sports, afraid of being ridiculed for who they are.

"I already know about the Games," I reply to the caller. "And I'm giving them everything I have."❤

PHOTOGRAPH BY KENT KALLBERG