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“I’ve always got a big smile on my face but I felt people didn’t like me being happy. “I knew I was very different at school,” he says. Gunning could not be himself for much of his life. These Games can act as a catalyst for change because this is Birmingham’s chance to shine and show people how equality and diversity works. As a swimmer who represented Jamaica, while training in the UK, I have an opportunity to highlight such issues. A high number still have the death penalty as punishment. The Commonwealth Games will be held this summer in Birmingham but, as Gunning explains: “35 of those countries still have homophobic laws. Michael Gunning in the garden of his parents’ house in Orpington, Kent. Hopefully in 10 years’ time the next black gay swimmer will be seen just as a great swimmer representing their country.” I’m an international swimmer but I had to go through that to bring about change. “I don’t like to be called ‘The gay black swimmer’ in headlines. And let’s not forget that being able to swim can save your life. “I do lots of school visits and ask parents: ‘Why don’t you encourage swimming more?’ The answer is always the same: ‘Why would we encourage them to do something they won’t succeed at?’ Hopefully people like me will show it can be done. He confirms the statistics produced by Swim England which state that 95% of black adults and 80% of black children in this country do not swim. But he also carries a serious intent, for he has endured too much to avoid some hard truths about race and homophobia. Gunning has a charisma and dynamism more suited to television extravaganzas than chlorine-scented swimming pools. I want to help change homophobic laws around the world. I want to encourage black people to swim. “I could swim at the Commonwealth Games this year, and go to the next Olympics, but I wouldn’t gain anything unless I was winning a medal. Hopefully in 10 years’ time the next black gay swimmer will be seen just as a great swimmer representing their country Gunning has swum in two world championships, broken numerous Jamaican national records in freestyle and butterfly and he was desperately unlucky not to swim at the Olympic Games in Tokyo last year. His strong friendship with Becky Adlington and her former husband, Harry Needs, meant that they asked him to be godfather to their daughter. He trained alongside the formidable Olympic champion Adam Peaty, his close friend, for many years in the GB squad. Gunning asked to do this interview as a way of announcing his retirement. It’s only in recent years that I’m proud to say I’m a swimmer.” Sometimes I just wanted to be a straight white swimmer who had only the pressure of competing because, when I went to competitions, people often said: ‘You must be a runner.’ I said: ‘Yeah.’ It was too much hassle to say I’m a swimmer and they’d go: ‘Well, how?’ That conversation would bring me down and I always want to be up. I should do something black people would succeed at, like athletics. “At school there weren’t many mixed-race people,” Gunning says, “and I had lots of voices telling me black people can’t swim. Michael Gunning competes for Jamaica in the men’s 200m butterfly heats at the 2017 world championships in Budapest.