Federation of Gay Games

Bruce won 1984 Olympic gold in Los Angeles, anchoring the U.S. men's 4 x 200 m. freestyle relay team in what is widely acknowledged as one of the most exciting races in Olympic history, coming from behind to out-touch West Germany's Michael Gross by .04 seconds and setting a word record of 7:15.69 ... Native of San Antonio, Texas ... After a highly successful age-group career in Texas, he was a full scholarship swimmer at UCLA, becoming the highest-scoring freshman at the 1981 NCAA Championships and helping the Bruins win the national title ... Bruce competed around the world on several U.S. national teams in the early 1980s ... His breakthrough year was 1983 when he won the first of three national titles ... He captured three gold medals at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela ... He retired following his Olympic success, thinking his swimming career was over ... He earned a Masters degree at Northwestern University in Chicago and later moved to New York to work in public relations ...

In the mid-1990s Bruce enjoyed a return to the Olympics on the management side with a 15-month stint in Atlanta as the Assistant Competition Manager for Swimming ... He returned to his public relations career in New York following the Atlanta Olympics and later worked in Edelman's Madrid office for two years ... Fluent in Spanish, he continues to travel around the world on behalf of Edelman clients ...

Bruce joined Team New York Aquatics in 1990 ... He became the first Olympic gold medalist to compete in the Gay Games and has competed at the 1990 Gay Games III in Vancouver and the 1994 Gay Games IV in New York ... His accomplishments at Gay Games IV were particularly remarkable — he set five 25-meter short course Masters world records, including becoming the first Masters swimmer to break 4:00 in the 400 m. freestyle ... Bruce has consistently lent his name and support to LGBT causes ... In 1994, he was included in Out magazine's list of 100 most influential gays and lesbians in America ... During his time in Atlanta he was a co-founder of the Atlanta Rainbow Trout swim team ... He was one of the four charter Gay Games Ambassadors when the program was launched in 2002 ... Bruce attended the Gay Games' 25th anniversary celebration in San Francisco in October 2007 and presented the Federation's inaugural Media Award.

Quotable: "While I'll always be extremely proud of my accomplishments as a member of the U.S. National Team, particularly at the Olympics in 1984, in many ways my participation at the Gay Games has been just as meaningful to me. The Gay Games gave me the courage to come out and the awareness and willingness to get involved in our community's political struggles, things I sorely lacked during my years in the closet. The stereotype has been that members of the LGBT community weren't athletic. The good thing about sports is that it's a really good arena to dispel those stereotypes. The Gay Games just opened up a whole chapter of what the real story is with gays and sports."

"Gay Games," "Federation of Gay Games," and the interlocking circles device are trademarks of the Federation of Gay Games, Inc.
Trademarks are registered in the USA, Canada, Benelux, the UK, and Australia.
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