Canadian swim champ Markus Thormeyer comes out

Canadian swimmer Markus Thormeyer, who competed in the 4 x 100 freestyle relay team in the 2016 Olympics, just came out of the closet.

Thormeyer, now 22, shared his coming out story in an emotional essay for OutSports. In it, he recalls the shame of hiding his sexuality from his teammates.

“Creating these intimate bonds with my teammates was amazing, but it also made me feel guilty at the same time.” he writes. “They were exposing their most raw essence in the pool every day, but I would come to the pool emotionally guarded and not do the same. Following every interaction with my teammates, I would feel a bit sad because they weren’t getting to know the real me, just some surface-level shell I fabricated.”

He then goes on to explain that he feared rejection from the team should he ever open up about being gay. He feared hostility from his teammates, or that he would lose a shot at competing in the Olympics.

“I didn’t want to take that chance, so I kept my walls up and generally avoided talks about sexuality and dating.”

Related: Actress Rosario Dawson comes out

That stress eventually took its toll on Thormeyer and led to….

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