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German judoka Timo Cavelius is already a history-maker. He became the first out LGBTQ male judoka to compete in the Olympics at the Paris Games in 2024, holds 11 IJF medals, ranks top among German judokas in his weight class and did it all as an out athlete.
While he wasn’t out publicly until 2020, Cavelius came out as gay to his parents and teammates in 2015. In a new self-penned column for Tagesspiegel’s “Sport Pride” series during Pride Month, Cavelius opened up about those experiences, calling his 2015 coming out as “a conscious decision” that “the hiding had to stop.”
“Everything was becoming a bit too much for me: the World Championships, the pressure to perform, my final school exams and — on top of that — the need to keep my true self hidden,” Cavelius wrote. “What weighed on my mind the most wasn’t the act of coming out itself, but rather how the other would react.”
Cavelius feared exclusion, hate and that his teammates would see him differently, but he knew he had to be true to who he is and trust that those on the tatami with him wouldn’t make those fears materialize.
He was accepted unequivocally.
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Timo Cavelius is a gay judo athlete who won a German championship
Timo Cavelius has been out as gay judoku since he was 15 and has his sights set on the Paris Summer Olympics.
“My team included athletes of very diverse nationalities — Russian and Serbian, for example. Everyone reacted positively,” he wrote. “One of the team’s best athletes took me aside and said, ‘Timo, I have absolutely no problem with it. As long as you deliver results on the mat, it’s completely fine by me.’ A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.”
In Cavelius’s eyes, what surprised people more was how his masculine gender expression didn’t square with stereotypes of gay men. “I think that was an eye-opener for kids and adults alike: homosexuality cuts across the entire population,” he wrote. “There are masculine gay men just as there are androgynous straight men.”
Cavelius is clearly comfortable with bucking stereotypes and helping rewrite how gay men are perceived in international athletics, but his presence also helped curb casual homophobia within judo circles.
It all lines up with Cavelius embracing the idea of being a role model for queer athletes, much like how Yvonne Bönisch, German Olympic gold medalist judoka and current head coach of the Austrian Judo national team, was for him.
“The most successful German judoka and an Olympic champion married a woman and has a child with her. That showed me early on that homosexuality is not a sign of weakness,” Cavelius wrote. “And now I’m trying to step into that role, though it comes with a certain amount of pressure, especially with an eye on the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. I returned from Paris without a medal. I want things to be different this time.”
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