Olympic hockey player Caruth comes out as gay: 'Best thing I’ve done in my life'

DIFFERENCE-MAKER: Peter Caruth in his player-coach role with Annadale, April 2017. Picture: Adrian Boehm

Olympic hockey player Peter Caruth is hopeful his decision to publicly come out as gay will help other elite sportsmen to be more comfortable in their own skin.

In so doing, Caruth - who has played for Ireland 142 times - has become the first international hockey player to come out and just the second Irish male Olympian after taekwondo’s Jack Woolley.

In his post on Instagram, he said: “I came out as GAY shortly before the Christmas break! I know, the shock, the horror but it’s ok everyone. Nobody needs to freak out.

“I’ve know that I’m gay since my early teens and I feel now is the right time to tell everyone … and say it really is the best thing I’ve done in my life because now I can stop hiding who I really am.

“I wrote down on paper and said in my head that I’m gay but to actually say it out loud was the hardest thing I have ever done.

“The response since coming out has been extremely positive and I have had other male sporting athletes come up to me and say ‘me too’. These moments are spine tingling and rewarding.

“Firstly, I am grateful each of you had the courage to tell me and I feel that, being the joker and character I am, I can help other athletes come out and accept themselves. I think it’s my calling.

“For me the world is changing with many sporting make athletes having the courage to come out such as Jake Daniels, Craig Napier, Lloyd Wilson and, most recently, Nick McCarthy from Leinster rugby.

“The way Irish people both north and south are accepting male sports athletes coming out will only help make a positive change both in sport and society.” Expanding on his journey to the Irish Examiner, he added that carrying his secret for so long was something that pushed him to the brink on a number of occasions.

Growing up in east Belfast, going to an all-boys school and in a religious household, the idea of coming out was never on the agenda.

He dated a “load of girls” but realises he was trying to hide who he really was and lived with the fear of coming out and not being accepted.

“My mates are sporty, masculine, and that for me, was the hardest bit. Nobody from our sport, male-wise, has fully come out at international level. That was the scary part and why I hid it the whole time. I thought I would do a Philip Scholfield on it - get married, have kids - it was going down that road, lying to everyone…” 

In hindsight, Caruth can see it pushed him to the mental brink. He was a pivotal part of the Irish setup in their golden period, winning European bronze in 2015 and qualifying for Rio with his “ostrich celebrations” becoming a rare viral hit for the sport.

All the while, his attempts to cover manifested in a range of different mental health issues. Through his teens, he developed OCD anxiety disorder - not diagnosed until many years later - needing to flick light switches 100 times before he could go to bed.

“My brain was doing all these back-flips and tumbles since I was 14, thinking can I tell someone? The amount of times I almost did tell someone and then back out of it.

“Some days, it would take me four or five hours to go to bed, get two hours sleep even during the Olympics. I thought it was because of other things.

Whilst at his playing zenith, off-field he was at his lowest. He wanted to back out of the Olympics 10 days before the side departed for Rio, crippled by stress.

“I wasn’t going to go. I was so stressed; I went to every doctor under the sun. I couldn’t sleep, my nose and everything was at me, I couldn’t stop feeling spaced out.

“What happens if someone found out in Rio and it explodes? All these things going on, I didn’t tell my dad exactly why but he did eventually talk me down.” Most alarmingly, at a training camp in Spain, he climbed out onto a balcony and attempted to kill himself with oblivious team mates in the neighbouring rooms.

He got a reputation as a “man of glass”, picking up seemingly innocuous injuries and ailments.

“I went to a different physio down here [in Dublin] who said there’s definitely something else going on. He was a more spiritual man - I was like ‘nah’ but at the back of my mind, I knew he was on to me! He’s worked me out - I almost didn’t go back to him after that because of it.” 

After the episode in Spain, he was formally diagnosed for OCD but found was not fully comfortable to open up in his susbequent psychologist sessions.

“I was trying to keep it to myself and not let that last wee bit out. Nothing was ever going to help unless I helped myself first. Maybe I’d get married, have kids and then open up another level of trouble. Or else maybe it would be better if I not be here.” 

In the end, it simply took the right words at the right time from his best mate late last year, Peter Whan: ‘Mate, if you're are gay, it’s ok’.

“When that happened, the dam just burst. The emotions just came down for two or three days. I could finally give in to it.”

From there, it was a matter of who could he tell. Well known as a joker, Peter’s sister Ali initially thought it was the latest prank. A friend from the sporting world fainted; so did an ex-girlfriend but the overall reaction from family and his circle as news filtered out has been hugely positive.

“I haven’t had any negativity on it which has been weird. I know there will be and understand that is a reflection of them more than me but there will be people who say something ‘old-fashioned’ or a boring way of thinking.

“The whole hockey community at this point in time are on board. When I told the lads at Corinthian [his current club], it was almost like a party.” 

Since word got round, Caruth’s OCD has tamed and he says his physical ailments have also scaled back considerably.

“It’s funny, this season has been the one I have been most injury-free [since I told people]. I’ve played the most, trained the most ever. When you break it down and take back the layers, when I was hanging on, I can laugh now but it is a wee bit sad because it should never get back to the point.

“In the end, my parents were upset I had held it in so long, no wonder you went through all that to get to this point. I was annoyed at myself I didn’t do it earlier but at least I have done it. It’s what needs to happen more so let’s get this out there and you’ll be fine.” 

Now, he hopes he can use a platform to help others in his position, to scale back the stigma of coming out in macho environments to the point where it becomes unnecessary to come out.

He has full support from his workplace, King’s Hospital, where he is head of hockey. He hails the school for leading the way in terms of acceptance “for any gender, religion or ethnicity”.

And he says he is happy to take up such platforms, particularly with the current momentum: “If I’m one of the first Olympic athletes to come out as a gay male in 2022, why has it taken so long? It shouldn’t need to be a big hoo-ha of ‘oh class, you’re gay!’ “I have lads come up to me and pull me aside and say ‘I’ve heard your gay; I am too but I can’t tell anyone because of this’. That, for me, is brilliant [that they are talking about it]. I’ve accepted myself and can say to them ‘look, it’s alright, take your time’ and can give advice.”