Canadian diver Maxim Bouchard competes for the national team, and he recently opened up about coming out as gay, which he believes helped him to have made it to the Olympics.
The athlete was born on September 18, 1990 in LaSalle, Quebec, Canada. In 2010, he had a nearly fatal incident while he was preparing for an exhibition show in the Philippines. The wooden platform he was jumping on collapsed, and he plummeted into a concrete ditch instead of landing in the pool.
According to Outsports, Bouchard was then “rushed to the hospital where doctors stitched him up and inserted a metal plate in his left arm.” Thereafter, he was 19 years old when he was told that he would never dive again because he couldn’t lift his hand for six months.
Despite the devastating news that he was told, the diver was able to get back into elite competition within 18 months. After his second life-changing moment, Bouchard came to a realization about coming out.
“I was holding so much inside. When I came back from my accident, I had been so focused on just getting back to diving. But now I was thinking, maybe it’s time to come out,” he told the outlet.
He also noted that there were some coaches with homophobic attitudes, which didn’t help him to be open about his sexuality. Despite that, he decided to come out to his teammates in January 2016 at a Grand Prix event in Germany.
“I got the best support. It was great. They were glad that I had come out to them, and had trusted them,” Bouchard recalled.
Thereafter, he told his family, who reacted positively. However, he didn’t have the full support of his coaches.
“I proved them wrong. One had even told me that my coming out would be a distraction and that I should have waited until after the Olympics. Actually, it was the opposite,” he shared.
Bouchard further expressed,
“I had to come out, because otherwise I wouldn’t have made the Olympics. I truly believe that.”
Now that we’ve gotten to know a bit more about the talented hottie that is Maxim Bouchard, let’s also take a moment to admire some of his thirst-worthy pics:
Sources: en.wikipedia.org, outsports.com
