Everything you need to know about gay Olympic swimmer and BBC pundit Mark Foster

Former swimmer and gay Olympic hero Mark Foster is now a BBC commentator, and will be helping Clare Balding guide viewers through aquatic events at Paris 2024.

Foster, 54, swum in the Olympics, world championships and the Commonwealth Games. 

He has been covering the swimming events at the Paris Olympics for the BBC.

Is Mark Foster gay?

Foster came out as gay publicly in November 2017, after years of speculation about his sexuality.

“I’ve been tiptoeing in the shadows but now’s the time to come out,” he told The Guardian. “I’ve got used to avoiding the truth and I never spent much time looking in the mirror.

“It’s a fear of being vulnerable because if you open yourself up, you could be hurt.”

Speaking to Winq magazine, he explained that tabloid rumours about this sexuality left him feeling out of control.

What are Mark Foster’s swimming achievements?

Throughout a career that spanned from 1986 to 2008, Foster primarily competed in butterfly and freestyle at 50m.

His breakthrough came in 1990 with a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. He’d won a team bronze as part of the 100m freestyle relay in Edinburgh four years earlier and he is now recognised as one of the most successful British swimmers of all time. 

Foster officially retired with six World Championship titles, two Commonwealth titles and 11 European titles under his trunks. He broke eight world records.

Does Mark Foster have any Olympic medals?

Foster is a five-time Olympian but never managed to win a medal.

His Olympic career began in Seoul in 1988 where he competed in the 50m freestyle, 4x100m medley relay and 4x100m freestyle relay.

In Barcelona in 1992, Foster reached his best Olympic position: sixth in the 50m freestyle. He went on to compete in 1996 in Atlanta and 2000 in Sydney.

Having seemingly retired in 2006, he returned to the pool to once again chase the dream of an Olympic medal in Beijing in 2008. But he failed to reach the final of the 50m freestyle event. However, he was the Team GB flag-bearer during the Parade of Nations.

Does Mark Foster have a partner?

When he came out in 2017, “silver fox” Foster revealed that he did have “someone special in his life”.

Appearing on ITV’s Loose Women, he said: “I first met my first partner when I was 21, I was in a relationship for 19 years, then I met somebody else and fell in love with them for seven years.

“To friends and family, I was out. It took me a long time to tell my mum, a couple of years anyway. End of last year was quite a difficult time, I split from my partner and had a break. All these things were going on.”

You can read all of our Olympics coverage from the Paris 2024 Games here.

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