Gareth Thomas is the only openly gay professional athlete in the world, and today he visited Ellen and shared what it's been like -- and the support he's received from some surprising sources Read more: ellen.warnerbros.com/2011/01/the ... z1A9w9WzPw Gareth Thoms shares his story on the Ellen show I find it hugely courageous and he deserves all the credit he's getting,On the Rugby League side is he still fully committed to The Crusaders, im sure he would be on a huge wage there and he's not training with the crusaders at the moment.

Gareth Thomas is the only openly gay professional athlete in the world, and today he visited Ellen and shared what it's been like -- and the support he's received from some surprising sources Read more: ellen.warnerbros.com/2011/01/the ... z1A9w9WzPw Gareth Thoms shares his story on the Ellen show I find it hugely courageous and he deserves all the credit he's getting,On the Rugby League side is he still fully committed to The Crusaders, im sure he would be on a huge wage there and he's not training with the crusaders at the moment.

Is he really the only openly gay professional athlete in 2010? It's decades since the likes of Martina & Billie Jean, Greg Louganis, Ian Roberts, Justin Fashanu?

did he mention RL much?

nice addition after russel crowes been on the tonight show and opera winfrey was talking about souths

I'm sure he used the opportunity to talk about how great RU is and give a passing mention to how hurt he was by a handful of northern England beatniks chanting 100 metres away.

Very little rugby was discussed tbh it was more about his struggle with accepting who he is and how being in a "Macho" enviroment made the pressure and resulting "coming it" a courageous act. For me its a shame he didnt cross codes 3 years ago as he will not be remembered for being a rugby league player and i would be suprised to see him finish his crusaders stint.

if he didnt mention RL then f**k him

Classless.

someone should stop the internet and let you get off..... you're to stupid to use it.

I expect its because Mickey Rourke is playing him in a new film. The Americans will treat this as a real curiosity, actually over here in the media I think this whole gay business is being overhyped, I don't know anyone who actually gives one about Thomas being gay, the real prejudice Thomas was likely to receive in RL is because he literally "played for the other code", so we all assumed he was a pansy boy who couldn't tackle, run or pass. Even at 35 he showed that some of those prejudices are a load of rubbish and he was easily able to handle himself in RL, he acquitted himself in RL far better than most of the recent RL converts to RU have done.

I remember when John Amaechi played basketball in the NBA (he's an English guy from Stockport), he ruffled some feathers there because he didn't fit the mould of their typical black basketball player who was supposed to play the role of a wannabe rapper, get in the odd scrape with the law, sound dumb, play ball and accept his paycheque. He turned down a massive contract from LA Lakers to stay with Orlando Magic because he wanted to stay loyal to the Magic for having faith in him (probably the biggest financial incentive ever turned down in the history of sport, he rejected a $17million deal to stay on a fairly modest contract at the Magic), he also turned out to be an outspoken intellectual with a PhD in Psychology and started speaking out against US foreign policy, and then came out as gay....this did not go down well in redneck America! A film on Amaechi's life would be great, they should cast Denzil Washington as him....

or will smith......

Your not from castleford are you with comments like that

It's like an episode from Little Britain but more far fetched

After a hard day at work at least it gives you a laugh

I seriously wish people would stop saying that he is the only openly gay athlete in the world. He really isn't. For god sakes, there's another openly gay player in his old sport.

Look u Ma'a Nonu.

You're obviously from Wigan with an education like that.

Your comment was no better than dally's to be fair. You are still angry that your fans abused him and came out of it in a bad light? Through absolutely no fault of his own you are still whingeing about your club being fined last year.

is women's tennis no longer a professional sport then?

im smart enough to spell too you twit

That is a grammatical error, not a spelling mistake – ironically, the same as your 'im' which should be I’m

Stones and glass houses?

Schoolboy error!

Methinks Dally was taking the rise?

thanks for that reply, its in accordance with recent contributions on here, good work

i dont care who gareth thomas sleeps with.

if a RL player is on a high profile show and doesnt use it as a chance to promote the sport and indeed just spends time talking about himself then hes nothing in my eyes

at least mention how much hes enjoying hes new sport and promote it.

where he sticks his ding dong is something i couldnt give 2 s***ts about

First of all, at risk of sounding like a play ground fight, if you check the thread you will find that you started the ‘contributions’ around spelling errors – I was simply trying to help you understand the differences between spelling and grammar. I guess I’m just a helpful soul

Back to topic. We cannot expect Gareth Thomas to promote the game of Rugby League on national TV in the US – perhaps we would if it was a UK programme but the vast vast majority of the US public don’t know there are two forms of rugby (in fact the vast majority probably only have a remote idea what rugby is at all)

I’m sure that the producers would have loved it if Gareth started the interview with... “Well Ellen, in 1895 the Northern clubs met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield to discuss the emotive topic of broken time payments to players etc etc etc”

When I go and visit my Italian in laws, they know I enjoy rugby so they mention the six Nations/RU World Cup and so on – I don’t bother trying to correct them that they are not talking about the right form of rugby because (here is the important bit) they don’t know and don’t care, they are just being nice! (my wife of course knows all about the differences because I bang on about it all the time... but that’s her fault for marrying me)

You really should just try and calm down a little

Surely 'coming out' is a bit retro now? Ok it was clearly hard for the guy but in honesty jumping at every ounce of publicity (Inc OTT aftermath from Cas game) does more to harm 'equality' then the chants themselves IMO.

what i find amusing is the minute anyone criticises thomas its assumed to be because he is gay.