Being a Paralympian athlete is just one aspect of Már Gunnarsson’s life. The Icelandic swimmer is also a professional musician, a student and an advocate for the rights of visually impaired people — and says he could never give any of it up.
“I think to myself, ‘If I would just pick one thing, like just do swimming or just do music,’ I would potentially be better at it than I am,” Gunnarsson, who is blind, told NBC News. “But then again, that wouldn’t be who I am and I think I would just lose my mind.”
Gunnarsson, 24, competed at his second Paralympic Games this month in Paris, where he qualified for the 100-meter backstroke final and finished in seventh place. Though he hoped to rank higher, he accomplished his personal best time and broke the previous Icelandic record for the event. He was also one of a handful of out LGBTQ swimmers to ever compete at the Paralympics.
“I like breaking records,” Gunnarson said of representing the LGBTQ community in the pool. As for his performance in Paris, Gunnarson acknowledged “we always want more” but said he is ultimately happy with his result.
At the 2021 Tokyo Games, Gunnarsson mentioned being gay in a media interview that quickly went viral in his home country. He hadn’t planned it as a grand coming out and, although he got “some naughty and boring comments” after the interview, Gunnarsson said the support he received was overwhelming.
“The majority of [the comments] was just so much support and so much love, which I really felt, and it kind of just broke the ice for me,” he said.
As the number of out Olympians and Paralympians has grown in recent years, Gunnarsson hopes more athletes will feel confident to come out. This year, 42 out LGBTQ Paralympians and 199 out LGBTQ Olympians competed in Paris, according to the LGBTQ sports site OutSports.
Gunnarsson, also a singer and piano player, splits his time between Iceland, Luxembourg and the U.K., where he studies music at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He’s currently working on an album, “Orchestral Me,” which he describes as “orchestral pop” and hopes to release later this year.
One song from the album, “Spirit in Motion,” was released in August during the two weeks between the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Gunnarsson hoped the song could bridge the gap between the two events since the athletes never overlap in a physical space.
“It’s kind of my contribution to this year’s Olympics and Paralympics,” he said. “I really wanted to tell the story of what the athlete must take on to reach that highest level of performance.”
Gunnarsson added that he feels there’s a “gap” between Olympians and Paralympians, “which I find really sad, because in the end we are all top athletes going through the same process to reach that level.”
“We could learn so much from each other and build such a strong community if we would get the chance to mingle,” he said.
Besides the Paralympics, Gunnarsson travels internationally for other swim competitions, including championships in London, Mexico, Portugal and Iceland, where he broke a world record in 2021 in the men’s 200-meter backstroke S11. But he says his travel has been impeded by new regulations in the U.K., where he’s a student, that won’t allow him to fly with his guide dog, Max.
“It’s terrible. They’re really raising barriers in our way and making life just so much more complicated than it has to be,” Gunnarsson said.
His public criticism of the regulations are an extension of the disabled rights advocacy that he began at home. In Iceland, he regularly speaks at schools around the nation about his life and shares what his life is like as a blind person on social media, hoping to demonstrate that his visual impairment is not an obstacle to him.
“I find it just so important no matter who we are or in what position we are in … whether we are going to the Olympics or Paralympics, no matter if we’re going to the shops or to school or meeting friends, we should always just come to the door as who we are,” he said.
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