WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!

Mister Gay Flanders has been held Friday evening on the 28th of June, where the winner will compete for the Mister Gay World this August. The last competition will also be held this year in Belgium. Twelve contestants have compete with each other for the title of Mister Gay Flanders. After many months of interviews in magazines, television appearances and making many presentations all over the Flemish part of Belgium, it led up to the final evening. This event was happening in D-club, one of the gay-clubs in Antwerp. And off course an afterparty was right behind it with a guest performance of singer Kate Ryan.

Because of other commitments Pink In Our Lives could not attend the complete event from the beginning, but we were right on time for the announcement for the winner and for the afterparty. We do not want to miss out on the booze and dancing off course ;o) The competition started a few months ago after a long search for candidates. The organization wanted a mixed group of guys and not only pretty boys to walk on a catwalk. The guys also need to have something to tell and because they need to present the LGTB community, it should have been a variety of guys. Not everybody felt that the guys were hot enough to be mister Gay, but is that the first priority to pick somebody? No it is not and everybody will be attractive to somebody, whatever the world you are living in. The guys have promoted themselves in the past months and I knew some guys before the competition and I have gotten to know some guys better during the competition and the importance is that you can have a conversation with these boys. They have to present our community and just a beautiful body or face alone does not cut it.

It was a long evening for the contestants with presenting themselves, showing and parading in clothes, underwear etc. In between also performances of artists to keep the audience entertained.

(Too bad there were more ballads than dance songs to keep it more spicy) besides that it was a great edition and well organized by Bram Bierkens, his boyfriend Ivan Denis (ambassador of the World Outgames 2013) and all the other staff. It was also the first edition they have organized and I think they should keep doing this for the next coming years too.

During the competition several judges like Pascal Smet (minister of Equality Rights), celebrities like Joyce de Troch, Lulu Aertgeerts, fashion designer Geert de Puysseleyr and OUTtv CEO Marc Putnam were looking for the first male to represent the LGBT community and came to the conclusion that Tom Goris is the winner. I am glad because two of my favorites were in the top three Tom Goris (winner) and David Dedeene. (first runner up). Second runner-up was David Joëts. During the evening two other contenders won a price. Johan ‘Hooghe won the price for Mr. Sympathetic and Jeroen Aertgeerts won the price for the most photogenic person during the competition. Congrats to you all guys. Well done.

Tom (34) from Tremelo won because of his charisma and looks, but also because he made a statement. He had a clear message (and not like in every pageant I want world peace). He wants to take a stand against bullying and trying to prevent it. It is a clear message and nicely brought on stage, which he have to do this august again at Mr the Gay World competition, but also in Prague with the Mister Europe Competition. Tom is an insurance officer and came out of the closet in 1997.

When his name came out as winner, Tom showed again his personality. He was humble, shy and overwhelmed. You would have thought that he did not like to be a winner, but he was so surprised and honored, that all evening he walked around still not believing it. All the contestants did great and should be proud of themselves (for at least coming forward as gay and showing that they are just human beings like everybody else), but Tom is a well-deserved winner of the 2013 edition of Mister Gay Flanders.

We wish Tom all the good luck and mostly also fun with the next competitions and hopefully that he can bring his statement to reality. I hope he can make a difference, but I am pretty sure he will. Let us all watch out to August in Antwerp, where all the other beautiful guys from other countries come over the Mister World Competition and let them show their stuff to us ;o) August is definitely the place to be when this and The World Outgames go on for a whole week. Don’t miss out anything and otherwise we at Pink In Our Lives will keep you posted. Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/pinkinourlives to find out more.