Former Wales and Lions captain Gareth Thomas has broken one of the major taboos that surround sport by revealing he is gay. The 35-year-old joins stars like basketball’s John Amaechi and hurling’s Donal Og Cusack who have come out.
“Just because you are gay, it doesn’t mean you fancy every man who walks the planet,” Thomas told the Daily Mail.
“I don’t want to be known as a gay rugby player. I am a rugby player first and foremost. I am a man.”
Cardiff Blues utility back Thomas said he had been through “all sorts of emotions” over the issue, since first knowing he was gay in his late teens. He revealed that he was “anxious about people’s reactions” to him being gay and that he felt he could not have come out earlier in his rugby career.
“It is the toughest, most macho of male sports, and with that comes an image,” Thomas said.
“In many ways, it is barbaric, and I could never have come out without first establishing myself and earning respect as a player. Rugby was my passion, my whole life, and I wasn’t prepared to risk losing everything I loved.”…
Thomas went on to win 100 caps for Wales and three for the Lions, and has played for Bridgend and Cardiff and spent three years in France with Toulouse, before returning to south Wales in 2007. He feels attitudes have changed and the time is right for sport to start accepting openly gay people in the same way other professions have in recent years.
“It’s pretty tough for me being the only international rugby player prepared to break the taboo. Statistically I can’t be the only one, but I’m not aware of any other gay player still in the game. I’d love for it, in 10 years’ time, not to even be an issue in sport, and for people to say: ‘So what?’”
- BBC News
3 Comments
Good luck to Gareth. I think it must be very hard to come out in a sport like Rugby Union. Hopefully it won’t change anything for him.
I totally disagree with what DEM seems to be saying. Are you implying that there is hidden homoeroticism in a sport where men with hard, taut bodies thrust against each other in a writhing pile of manhood? Where fierce, violent embraces abound, where muscular arms grab onto firm waists and haul them roughly to the ground?
Because that would *obviously* be silly.
In fairness, Gareth is a back, and didn’t spend very much time with his head between anyone’s legs (on field).
And talk about ‘barbaric’ – most Australians remember Gareth Thomas for a distinctly un-homoerotic cheap shot on Berrick Barnes at the last world cup. He decked Barnes, then about 20 years old, with a cynical head-shot after Barnes put through Giteau for a try and was no longer expecting contact at all.
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