Gareth Thomas

Gareth Thomas grew up in Bridgend and left school to work as a postman before rugby became his living. He was a big, fast, direct player who could fill several positions, and he won 100 caps for Wales, more than anyone before him, captaining the team to a Grand Slam in 2005. He also captained the British and Irish Lions in New Zealand that year.

Throughout all of it he knew he was gay and told almost no one. He married a woman, and has described standing on a hotel balcony considering suicide. His marriage ended when he told his wife the truth. In December 2009, still playing, he came out publicly, the first professional rugby union player to do so. He said he had expected to lose everything and instead found that most of the sport shrugged.

He switched to rugby league for a couple of seasons and retired in 2011. In 2019 he was told by a journalist that a newspaper was planning to reveal that he was HIV positive. He had been living with the diagnosis for years and had been afraid of exactly this. Rather than let someone else tell it, he made a video himself, and a few days later completed the Ironman Wales triathlon in Tenby, a 3.8 kilometre swim, 180 kilometre bike ride and full marathon.

He now campaigns to end the stigma around HIV, pointing out that with treatment he cannot pass the virus on.