Olympian Colin Jackson tells other gay athletes not to be ‘fearful’ of coming out

Former Olympian Colin Jackson has urged other LGBTQ+ athletes not to be “fearful” about sharing their queer identities with the world.

The former Welsh world-record 110m hurdler won an Olympic silver in Seoul in 1988, World Championship gold medals in Stuttgart and Seville in 1993 and 1999, an World Indoor Championships gold in 1999 as well as four European Championships and European Indoor Championships between 1989 and 2002.

Jackson, 59, came out publicly as gay in 2017 after having previously denied his sexuality publicly following the publication of a kiss-and-tell story in 2006, where an air steward claimed in a national newspaper that he had a secret affair with him.

In a new interview with the Irish Independent, Jackson – who visited University College Dublin to mark St David’s Day, in partnership with the Welsh government office in Ireland – opened up about what it was like to be a young, gay athlete and wanting to keep his private life private.

“When you’re a young athlete coming through, I want to talk about my athletics and my athletic skills and my world title and my world records, etc. I didn’t want to be explaining to people what I was doing in my bedroom, because you wouldn’t ask a straight person the same question,” Jackson told the outlet.

“So that’s when I was younger, I had no interest in bringing that to the ­general public, because I genuinely thought it was nobody else’s business anyway.”

However, he said that young queer athletes nowadays should not feel “fearful” about coming out.

“All of a sudden, you feel like, well, I’m part of this society. And the answer is, yes, you are part of this society,” he said.

“You can give, you can have a dream, and you can achieve your dream. Don’t be fearful just because it’s sexuality.”

During the interview, Jackson also opened up about struggling with disordered eating and body dysmorphia during his career.

“I was looking at athletes and looking at myself and thinking, ‘I don’t look like these other athletes’. So you start to get that body dysmorphia as well. And when that kind of happens, then you’re in big trouble,” Jackson said.

He described how in order in order to be a world-class athlete one of the “natural traits” you have to have is “obsession”.

He explained: “You’ve got to be obsessed about what you do. You’re obsessed about your training, about your sleeping. To do everything right. But once you push obsession over the other side, it becomes quite dangerous. And it was affecting lots of elements of my life.”

Discussing being in Ireland for St David’s Day, Jackson said it was nice to be back.

“I was so pleased to come over and to celebrate St David’s Day,” he said.

“I had not been here since lockdown. I used to spend a lot of time in Limerick, I trained in the University of Limerick and my physio was based in Limerick so it is always nice to come back.”