Team GB’s Tom Bosworth longs for the day when coming out as gay is no longer news

British athlete Tom Bosworth has just secured his place at next month’s Rio Olympics after victory at the British Grand Prix of Race Walking.

Missing out only by seconds for London 2012, Tom spoke to the BBC this morning (June 8) about the win ,and what his journey has been like since publicly coming out on the Victoria Derbyshire show last October.

The professional race walker, who became Britain’s only second openly gay track and field athlete after making the announcement, admitted he’s been surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reaction.

“It was a great reaction, I was expecting even just a little bit of slight negativity straight away afterwards, because, you know, not everyone sees the world through my eyes,” he told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire.

“The only negativity that did come across was people mentioning ‘this isn’t a story, why do we care?’ and that didn’t bother me one bit – that’s exactly how I wanted people to feel.”

Tom also talked about the newfound responsibility that he has on his shoulders as one of the few openly gay sportsmen at the top of their game.

“Whether I can support and help one person or 100 people, that is a job for me now, and that for me personally, not everyone might think like that and that’s absolutely fine, but what I did that last October, I now have to deal with the consequences – and all of them have been positive.”

The 26-year-old says that while he’s disappointed that coming out is “still news”, he lives for the day where “it won’t be a thing in which people have to come out publicly, people can just live openly.”

Tom spoke to Attitude last year on his coming out experience – read his interview in full here.

Watch the full interview over on BBC iPlayer (01:35:00).

Words: James Jefferson

More stories:
Male migrants and asylum seekers in Greece are turning to sex work in order to survive
How often do most gay men watch porn – and for how long?