Olympic medalist Tom Bosworth representing Team England. | Photo: supplied
Openly gay Olympic speed walker Tom Bosworth just won a silver medal at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games today (8 April).
Representing Team England and their proud partner npower, Bosworth is a co-captain of Team England. He competed in the 20km race walk and just lost out to Australia’s Dane Bird-Smith.
He set a British record of one hour 19 minutes 34 seconds.
Tom Bosworth winning silver at the Commonwealth Games. | Photo: Tom Bosworth / Instagram
Bosworth took to Instagram to post a beaming photo with the English flag wrapped around him. He captioned the photo: ‘Today! Career defining moments! Silver Medal 🥈 ✅ National Record ✅ #TomWalksFast ✅’
He said: ‘There was a lot of emotion on that last lap. I wanted a medal badly.’
He also thanked his fiancé in a tweet: ‘Proud. So, so proud.’
Proud, so so Proud. Thank you to everyone for your messages! Thank you for all the support from my family here and @harryd1010 and fam at home. This is redemption from 2017.
My support team, @andidrake @camcorbishley @CWilko97 and everyone else in that… https://t.co/M3UshNIdGF— Tom Bosworth (@TomBosworth) 8 April 2018
The medal placing comes about after Bosworth was disqualified at the London 2017 World Championships last year.
In that same year, he also smashed the world record for the one mile race at the Anniversary Games.
Tom Bosworth on coming out as gay
Tom Bosworth publicly came out as gay in 2015 and believes it dramatically improved his performance.
The 28-year-old told Gay Star News: ‘Since I came out, my performance has completely changed and that’s partly because I don’t have that worry at the back of my mind.’
Bosworth added: ‘It’s just gotten better and better every time I compete.’
Tom Bosworth. | Photo: supplied
Bosworth admitted he was ‘very nervous’ about it all, but the ‘whole situation came together perfectly.’
He said: ‘As I spoke about it with media outlets and things like that, it dawned on me it was quite a big deal. People were very interested and I thought it was crazy.
‘Since coming out, it’s opened my eyes and made me realize how big a deal it is,’ he said.
Tom Bosworth for Team England. | Photo: Tom Bosworth / Instagram
Bosworth proposed to his longterm partner Harry Dineley while at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil. Tom actually bought the Tiffany ring from Heathrow Terminal 5 on the way to the Rio Games.
But they met five years before that at a small pub in York, England.
The pair just bought a house together and say they’re looking to plan the wedding before the next Summer Olympics.
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npower is a proud partner of Gay Star News.
