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Coming Out Earns Team's Respect Skier: 'I Could Not Approach My Potential as an Athlete if Pieces of Myself Were Scattered'
By
Ryan Quinn
Had someone asked me five years ago if I knew myself, I would have laughed, naively believing I did. But the laughing stopped when I discovered an inconsistency around me: I was attracted to other guys, and somewhere, a voice that I could never really believe, was saying, “I’m not supposed to want this.” The confusion was not that the attraction felt strange or different. It did not. But I was reminded constantly that it was different. I was an athlete and I was not attracted to girls – as society clearly intended. |
Every athlete
reaches a point when they realize that sport is no longer an external
activity in which they merely participate, but an actual part of their
life. But for an athlete to be his best, the sport can be no more or
less a part of their life than any of the other parts. But I haven’t
always known this.