Mark Foster: ‘I tiptoed around in the shadows for so long, but now is the time to come out’

Sunlight streams through the huge windows that make Mark Foster’s front room such a light and airy space as he reaches the moment he has avoided for 30 years. It is a cold and beautiful morning in Hertfordshire and, from the converted barn where he lives, Foster can look down at the little river below where two swans lead their cygnets in a stately paddle.

The mood appears as serene in Foster’s home but a deeper truth is about to surface. “It’s not like I’ve been pushed to come out,” the former world champion swimmer says as he prepares to tell the world he is gay. “I’ve just swerved and swerved. Telling half-truths and not being my true self is only hurting me. I’m 47, a middle-aged man, and I’m no longer competing. And I’m not the first gay sportsman to come out. Gareth Thomas and Tom Daley led the way.”

I felt no real surprise when hearing that Foster wanted to talk publicly for the first time about his sexuality in this interview. Foster had not been tortured about being gay, or ashamed, and over the past 26 years he has lived with, and loved, two different men in long relationships. His family and friends are accepting and supportive.

Foster set eight world records as a freestyle and butterfly sprinter and won six world titles, 11 European championship gold medals, two Commonwealth golds and competed in five Olympic Games – even carrying the GB flag at the opening ceremony in Beijing in 2008. But he could not unlock a partially concealed secret about himself.

“I tiptoed around the issue for so long,” he says. “I got really good at the dance of telling half-truths. I’ve supported the Terence Higgins Trust, Stonewall, Ben Cohen’s Stand Up to Bullying campaign. But I’ve always done it under the radar. At the Sochi