Diving-LGBTQ representation at Games can change lives, says Daley

TOKYO, July 26 (Reuters) – Ever-increasing LGBTQ illustration on the Olympics has the potential to vary lives, newly minted gold medallist Tom Daley mentioned on Monday, after saying he grew up feeling like “an outsider.”

When the 14-year-old Briton made his Olympic debut in 2008, fewer than 20 of his fellow rivals brazenly recognized as lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender or queer. On the 2020 Olympics, that quantity has grown to greater than 160. read more

After choosing up his first-ever Olympic gold, with a shocking upset over China within the males’s 10 metre synchronised platform dive with workforce mate Matty Lee, the 27-year-old mentioned he and different LGBTQ athletes may enhance the lives of youngsters who really feel “frightened and scared and alone.” read more

“Once I was just a little boy and felt like an outsider and felt completely different and felt like I used to be by no means going to be something as a result of who I used to be wasn’t what society needed me to be, and to have the ability to see out LGBT individuals performing on the Olympic Video games is – I hope (it) can provide younger children hope,” he instructed reporters.

Daley, who picked up bronze medals on the London and Rio Video games, married Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director Dustin Lance Black in 2017 and welcomed a toddler in 2018, which he referred to as “the large turning level” of his profession as an athlete.

“I noticed that whether or not I do very well or whether or not I do terribly within the pool, that I can go house to a husband and son that loves me,” mentioned Daley.

Reporting by Amy Tennery; Modifying by Hugh Lawson

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