After competing for the third year in a row, Timo Cavelius became the first openly gay fighter to win the German National Judo Championships on January 31.
Last weekend, Cavelius became the national champion in the Japanese martial art discipline when he won the tournament in Stuttgart. He fought against former champion Tim Gramkow, gaining international attention after his win.
Now, he is determined to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics. If that were to happen, he would become the first openly gay male Olympian in judo, adding another name to the increasing number of LGBTQ+ athletes participating in the prestigious competition.
While Cavelius has been out to family and friends since he was 15, his public coming out in judo came later, in 2020. Talking about his experience to German newspaper Bento, he said: “In sport, the topic was taboo for me for a long time, not only because I had repeatedly read horror stories in the media about athletes coming out. In my team, we were all pubescent boys who still wanted to prove their masculinity.”
“Judo is also a very physical sport; after all, you throw each other around and you’re incredibly close in ground fighting. I was afraid that the others would no longer take me seriously,” he explained.
“I had a kind of pivotal experience when I spoke to our sports psychologist about my sexuality for the first time,” Cavelius said, speaking to OutSports. “She didn’t try to push me in any direction, but made it clear that the choice was entirely mine. And it was true: I could decide for myself how to deal with this matter. The fear of coming out came from me, I had overcome it with friends and family.”
“My ‘public’ coming out with my teammates was more or less a knee-jerk reaction: I simply made a Facebook post in which I cleared up the rumors. ‘Yes, I’m gay, but that doesn’t change who I am’,” he explained.
“Of course, I was scared of how my teammates would react. But apart from the classic ‘How are you doing?’ questions, they were all really cool with it,” he concluded.
© 2023 GCN (Gay Community News). All rights reserved.
Support GCN
GCN has been a vital, free-of-charge information service for Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community since 1988.
During this global COVID pandemic, we like many other organisations have been impacted greatly in the way we can do business and produce. This means a temporary pause to our print publication and live events and so now more than ever we need your help to continue providing this community resource digitally.
GCN is a registered charity with a not-for-profit business model and we need your support. If you value having an independent LGBTQ+ media in Ireland, you can help from as little as €1.99 per month. Support Ireland’s free, independent LGBTQ+ media.
comments. Please sign in to comment.