A Swiss wrestler has just become the first out gay male professional athlete in Switzerland.
Curdin Orlik is a champion in Schwingen, also known as Swiss wrestling. It’s the national sport of Switzerland and incredibly popular throughout the country, so even if it’s not something particularly well known elsewhere, its athletes are very important to the Swiss. And Orlik’s coming out is a pretty big deal.
“For far too long I have pushed out who I really am,” he said in his coming out interview with The Magazine. “I always knew that I was gay, for sure since I was 12. But I thought: this is wrong, it cannot be.
“I heard things on the school building square [like] ‘you gay pig,’ ‘you faggot.’ Or in soccer, ‘such a gay pass!’ Even when [wrestling]. Sure nobody really meant that, but if you’re like that yourself, you think, ‘Shit, that’s not a good thing.’
Orlik tried to hide the truth, even from himself, even going so far as to get married to a woman. They have a two year old child, but divorced after Orlik realized he couldn’t keep up the charade any longer.
“I thought: I don’t want to be gay. But it’s me. Now it’s out.”
It took him a full year of working on the interview with The Magazine before he was ready to come out, but the reactions have apparently already been positive. Orlik said on Instagram that he has been “overwhelmed” by the responses, and he is “now starting a new, open and free period of my life.”
Via Pride.Com
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