‘I used sport to hide my sexuality – but coming out helped me be the real me’

By Darren Wells For much of his life, Michael Gunning has had to become accustomed to standing out from the crowd. A keen swimmer who excelled in the pool from the age of four, Gunning possessed a natural talent and passion for a sport that would eventually take him to new heights. But it wasn’t his ability which immediately separated him from his peers, but the colour of his skin. Few black swimmers have ever broke into the mainstream of a sport still trying to shake some longstanding stereotypes. And as a black boy growing up in Orpington, Kent, with a dream of representing his country, Gunn…

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