Sunlight streams through the huge windows that make Mark Foster’s front room such a light and airy space as he reaches the moment he has avoided for 30 years. It is a cold and beautiful morning in Hertfordshire and, from the converted barn where he lives, Foster can look down at the little river below where two swans lead their cygnets in a stately paddle.
The mood appears as serene in Foster’s home but a deeper truth is about to surface. “It’s not like I’ve been pushed to come out,” the former world champion swimmer says as he prepares to tell the world he is gay. “I’ve just swerved and swerved. Telling half-truths and not being my true self is only hurting me. I’m 47, a middle-aged man, and I’m no longer competing. And I’m not the first gay sportsman to come out. Gareth Thomas and Tom Daley led the way.”
I felt no real surprise when hearing that Foster wanted to talk publicly for the first time about his sexuality in this interview. Foster had not been tortured about being gay, or ashamed, and over the past 26 years he has lived with, and loved, two different men in long relationships. His family and friends are accepting and supportive.
Foster set eight world records as a freestyle and butterfly sprinter and won six world titles, 11 European championship gold medals, two Commonwealth golds and competed in five Olympic Games – even carrying the GB flag at the opening ceremony in Beijing in 2008. But he could not unlock a partially concealed secret about himself.
“I tiptoed around the issue for so long,” he says. “I got really good at the dance of telling half-truths. I’ve supported the Terence Higgins Trust, Stonewall, Ben Cohen’s Stand Up to Bullying campaign. But I’ve always done it under the radar. At the Sochi Olympics [in 2014] I did a piece for Huffington Post. I was shocked by the treatment of gay people in Russia and needed to say something – without revealing anything about myself. So I half-said something. It’s always been half-truths in public.”
Foster has done lots of television work, from Strictly Come Dancing to being a BBC pundit. Even during fevered gossip about a possible relationship with a fellow swimmer, the four-time Olympic medallist and BBC analyst Rebecca Adlington, during the 2016 Olympics, when she was filmed squeezing his leg under the table, an assumption that he might be gay did not seem to matter to anyone but Foster and those closest to him.
Yet it does matter, particularly in sport, where it can still feel terribly hard for people to come out. Foster is intelligent and articulate, a man who also works as a model and a motivational speaker, but he has struggled since the age of 17 to voice out loud the simple fact he is gay. The longer we talk the clearer the reminder that being a gay sportsman still verges on the taboo.
When we turn to football, where the glass ceiling seems frosted and unbreakable to gay and bisexual men who play the game professionally while harbouring a secret, the importance of similar sportsmen talking openly is obvious. Foster, a Spurs supporter, understands why gay footballers might fear abuse from the terraces or uncertainty from team-mates if they came out. Other stories need to be heard first.
“I was a bit nervous today,” Foster admits, “but I kept busy. I was tidying the house for you [he laughs]. I was a little apprehensive but years ago I would have been fearful of how I would be judged. Maybe that’s me being older and having a long time to get used to the idea. I went to the Attitude awards last month and gave Greg Louganis [the gay American diver and double Olympic champion] an award. I spent time with him and his partner and was backstage with Prince Harry and Kylie Minogue. I have a weird and wonderful life meeting all these people. They know about me – well, Prince Harry doesn’t – and I felt such warmth and togetherness. I thought: ‘I’ve been tiptoeing in the shadows but now’s the time to come out.’ I wish I’d done it was when I was 21 and met my first partner. But I wasn’t ready. Sharing stuff was always the problem. I’ve got used to avoiding the truth and I never spent much time looking in the mirror. It’s a fear of being vulnerable because if you open yourself up you could be hurt.
“But a lot happened over the last year. I had problems with my other half and we had a break from January to April for me to look at myself. Usually, I can’t even read a book. I need to be busy. I don’t like thinking. I’m a doer. Most athletes are doers. They don’t use their minds anywhere near as much as their bodies. But I needed to look inside.
“I started seeing a therapist at the beginning of the year. It was really hard but I soon found I could tell him the truth because I didn’t really know him. He also won’t judge me and what I say stays with him. I then lost my dad in June. He knew I was gay but we never talked much. I kick myself because there were so many things I wanted to know because Mum and Dad split when I was 11. We had so many things we never shared. I now want to share my feelings.”
Foster had considered coming out publicly before – especially when the News of the World approached his first partner years ago, the Daily Mail alluded to his sexuality when he was on Strictly in 2008 and the Sun stalked Foster last December with creepy sensationalism. “But I didn’t want to be forced,” Foster says. “There was that stuff about Becky [Adlington] but she knows I’m gay and knows my other half. We’re good mates and when she doesn’t want to answer anything on live television she’ll squeeze my leg and I take over. But it became a huge story. I should have said: ‘Don’t be daft. I’m gay.’”
He can now talk about his private life on his own terms. “When I was younger, I thought my feelings were just a phase. I had girlfriends. I never had a boyfriend. But I had sexual experiences with boys. At swimming competitions I would go with women to divert attention from the real me. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy the act – I just preferred boys. But I accepted I was gay when I fell in love with my first partner, Vincent.
“I was closest to my youngest sister and I told her. A year later I told Mum. She cried at first because her immediate reaction was thinking no grandkids and what had she done wrong? But after five minutes she showed unconditional love. She cuddled me and said: ‘I love you to bits.’
“I wasn’t like Gareth Thomas [the rugby player who came out as gay when married]. I was never in that dark place. I’ve lived an openly gay life to my friends and family. But I always hid it as a swimmer.”
Foster once lived in Bath with Colin Jackson – the Olympic silver medallist and former world champion hurdler. Jackson came out this year. Foster and Jackson must have spoken about being secretly gay Olympians when sharing a flat? “No. It was bizarre. Colin was like me – no girlfriends – but we never spoke about his life. He knew my life and met my partner. We shared a flat for two years. But in that period we were in the flat together maybe 10 nights. He was training and racing, and I was doing the same. Look online and you’ll see people thought we were partners. We were just good mates. What I found fascinating was that we went on holiday to New York and Toronto to see his mates. He knew I’d fallen in love with Vincent and then John. But we wouldn’t talk about it.”
When Jackson came out three months ago, Foster tweeted: “Are you gay @colinjackson?” He posted an emoji, crying with laughter, and a #proudofyoumyfriend hashtag. “It’s a bit like my friendship with Ian Thorpe [the great Australian swimmer who came out in 2014]. Ian knew I was gay and we used to speak a lot on the phone but he wouldn’t share anything. But it’s around this masculinity thing and sport is gladiatorial.
“The first time I came out to anyone in swimming I was 30. I was training in Germany with my mate Neil Willey and Therese Alshammar, one of the most decorated swimmers of all time. We shared a flat and every Saturday night we’d go out. Once, pissed in this nightclub, I was dancing close to Therese. Neil sat at the bar giving me this look of thunder because he was seeing her. I went over and he said: ‘What are you doing so close to Therese?’ I said: ‘Mate, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m gay.’ He went: ‘Oh!’ My shield was down because I was pissed and felt comfortable sharing it with him and Therese. They met my partner and we went on holidays together. But I still couldn’t open up to others in swimming.”
Foster was also reluctant to come out while competing because of his focus on winning. But did all the shadowy half-truths have an impact on his swimming which, for all his success, was never capped by an Olympic medal? “A mate of mine, who swam for Australia, said: ‘The reason you never won Olympic gold is that you were afraid of the spotlight. You never wanted to show the real you.’ I don’t know if that’s true but when you’ve spent your whole life shying away from scrutiny it must have some impact. I’ve lost races and broken world records by 100ths of seconds. I’m not saying I would’ve won the Olympics but, if I wasn’t subconsciously processing all this stuff, I would have achieved more.”
In retirement, Foster says, “there was a darker side”, adding: “I was worried about how coming out might affect my work. My swim schools cater for children and there’s this insidious perception that gay equals paedophile/child molester. I never want to be perceived as being a threat to children.
“So I understand what’s stopping gay footballers coming out. I’ve been to many football matches and seen that aggressive mob mentality. Because of dressing room ‘banter’ they don’t want to show their real selves. Football is a weird testosterone-driven world and it’s the last bastion. But if a gay footballer came out it would change so many attitudes.”
Outside the bubble of elite sport surely people are more tolerant? “I play many charity and corporate golf days. I always get asked: ‘Are you married? How many kids?’ They just presume because most people’s perception of gay men is what they see on TV – camp chat-show hosts. They can’t put me in that box. I’m conditioned not to share so I’ll usually say: ‘I’ve got no kids but I’ve got a partner.’ If they ask ‘What does she do?’, I will either correct them or just say: ‘They’re a civil servant’ or ‘They’re an antiques dealer’. I’m very clever at dancing around stuff. But it’s tiring and sometimes I have been honest and said: ‘No, I don’t have kids. I’m gay.’ And a guy will surprise me and say: ‘Oh, but you could adopt kids.’ That’s refreshing.”
I am pretty sure that reaction to Foster coming out publicly will be just as refreshing. “I hope so. As you can tell from my bad moustache it’s Movember. I’ll be clean-shaven in December but it’s important to think about mental health and remember that the biggest killer of young men is suicide. I’d like to say to them it’s important not to live your life in fear. I’m not scared of many things but, until now, I feared looking inside at the real me. None of us like being vulnerable but sharing with other people has helped me come out and say: ‘This is the real me.’”
We talk for another half-hour, mostly about football, and Foster shows me jokey clips of Arsenal and Spurs. His sexuality is forgotten and it is only when he walks down to the water for a photo session that I remember his tiptoeing through the shadows is no longer needed. As I drive away he waves cheerfully. Mark Foster, a former world champion who just happens to be a gay man, looks happy and free in the winter sunshine.
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