Irish Track-And-Field Champion Comes Out
Denis Finnegan, a 10-time national track-and-field title winner in Ireland has come out in a recent podcast interview.
Finnegan made the revelation that he has been “drifting” toward coming out in recent years and has decided to do so to help other LGBT+ athletes feel less alone.
“For younger people it will hopefully give them more confidence in what they’re doing,” he said. “There are still people who are scared or unsure of what’s happening, so I hope just telling my story might help one person notice there’s more acceptance out there.”
As the ‘Washington Blade’ reports, Finnegan also revealed that he chose track-and-filed because it was more welcoming in comparison to team sports like basketball or Gaelic football.
“Athletics was always a place that, because it was quite mixed, it was a place I could have gotten away from everything,” he told the podcast. “I think those sports, because they were a team sport with males, there were times when it wasn’t comfortable,” he continued.
“Athletics was always my favorite sport, it was always the sport that was the one that was the most open. I’d be training with girls, I’d be training with guys, and I think that did help a bit. I was never worried about any kind of comments on the track. But when I was going for, say, football, it was more of an issue.”
He concluded the interview with a quote from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Read related myGwork articles here:
Argentina’s First Openly Gay Basketball Player Talks About Coming Out
Canadian Olympian Markus Thormeyer Comes Out
Olympic Diver Matthew Mitcham Marries Boyfriend Luke Rutherford
Top 10 LGBTQ+ Athletes You Need to Know About
Keep up to date with the latest myGnews
