A Quote by Gareth Thomas
I knew I was gay at 18, but to come out then would have meant I would not have achieved what I did in rugby. I loved rugby so much and it was so important to me that I made the decision to keep my sexuality secret. People may disagree with that, but it was my belief and my decision.
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I loved playing rugby so much. I would have played rugby every day if I could have. I loved being a player so much, I don't know if I could sit on the side, with the passion I have and try and influence without being on there.
I'm not going on a crusade but I'm proud of who I am. I feel I have achieved everything I could ever possibly have hoped to achieve out of rugby and I did it being gay. I want to send a positive message to other gay people that they can do it, too.
It is very easy to make athletes, and it is very difficult to make rugby players with that rugby instinct. I would like to think I have got a bit of rugby instinct and have become more of a rugby athlete along the way.
Boxing is the more dangerous activity from the rugby player's and the general public's point of view, but to me rugby is far more dangerous so I would prefer my sons to box. I love my children too much and do not want to watch them getting hurt. This is in no way intended as a criticism of rugby, which I consider to be a fantastic sport.
My loves in life are food, history and rugby. I'd love to be a history professor or a rugby player but I prefer rugby and my career would end by the time I was 30, leaving me enough time to go and study history.
My parents are huge influences on me. My mother was an English teacher. My father played professional rugby and coached rugby for the Irish rugby team.
If you knew that only a few would care that you came, would you still come? If you knew that those you loved would laugh in your face, would you still care? If you knew that the tongues you made would mock you, the mouths you made would spit at you, the hands you made would crucify you, would you still make them? Christ did.
If you get a career-threatening injury your career is done and you need something to fall back on. But if it wasn't for football I would have played rugby, if it wasn't rugby it would have been basketball and I would have just gone through all the sports.
We all create expectations of what we would like to happen after a decision is made. The picture in our mind's eye might have served a valuable function in helping to make a decision. But once the decision is made, let the picture go. Since you can't control the future, the picture can create unhappiness if it's not fulfilled. Disappointment may make you miss the good that can come out of every situation in which you find yourself.
My dad played rugby, so I used to watch a lot of rugby union and rugby league.
Ultimately, we are professional rugby people, and we focus on the rugby. That's the easy bit. We are not politicians, so we don't have to delve too much into that.
I tried sports, but I ended up being a paramedic. There was to be no rugby for me. Believe me, I did try, but I fell short. Rugby is tough, man.
I was born and raised to play rugby. I have two parents who are hugely proud of my rugby achievements, but even they say that maybe it was just a platform to give me a voice to do something better, and rugby wasn't what I was all about. Something else was.
I was always driven by the idea that if people ever found out about who I was then the stature I created for myself within rugby would have to be as relevant as the fact I was gay. It was always the driving factor to be the strongest, the fastest, the most skilful.
I think the first thing that I thought I would go and do as a career was be a rugby player. I had a trial with a club and it became very clear, very quickly that that wasn't going to be what I would end up doing. I was far too small and far too much of a lightweight, both mentally and physically, to play rugby at that level.
I was an ambassador for Betway during the Rugby World Cup and at the moment I'm working as an ambassador for Artemis Investment Management. I also organised the first Rugby Aid in 2015. We had celebrities playing rugby against former England team players and raised a ton of money for Rugby For Heroes [a charity for former servicemen and women]. Only one celeb got crunched quite badly - Jaime Laing from Made in Chelsea ended up with cracked ribs.
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