Boston Spirit uncovers Gay Games distortion

Boston lost the bid to host the 2014 Gay Games, but according to the next issue of the Boston Spirit, it may not have been fair and square. Reporter Sam Baltrusis, through a series of interviews and document analyses, discovered that the Federation of Gay Games might not have been sharing information properly with the potential host cities. Representatives of Boston 2014, the organization that tried to snag the bid as host city, called Cleveland's win into question.

"It was very disheartening because we thought we were on [fair] playing fields," Linda DeMarco, Boston 2014 Co-chair told Bay Windows. "In the world of sports, you're a sportsman and you play fair, and we certainly felt that it wasn't a fair playing field across the board."

"Each city put in a bid," Boston 2014 team member Marc Davino explained. "We did what we thought was appropriate in terms of following the guidelines...put forth. The city that actually won did not on numerous occasions and it appears as if they were awarded for kind of stretching the rules."

"In the article [in the Boston Spirit], you'll also see someone from the Federation arguing that they did not, and you'll see someone from Cleveland saying [the rules were] confusing, but our perspective was that there was some bias going on there in advance of the presentation in Cologne and we stick to that," Davino told Bay Windows. "What we don't want to do is come across as having sour grapes. ...It appeared from our point of view that a major international competition had biases, had processes, that were taken advantage of."

According to Davino, despite the inquiry into the processes guiding the FGG's selection of host city, Cleveland will still host the Gay Games in 2014. Visit the Boston Spirit website at bostonspiritmagazine.com to read more.