Thomas’ iron will makes him a true HIV warrior
Former rugby player is tackling the hardest test of his life head on, and winning, writes Jim White
Thomas did something remarkable: he helped change attitudes
0n Sunday, the Welsh coastal town of Tenby was filled, as it always is at this time of year, with thousands of people watching pain in action. It was the Tenby Ironman, the ludicrously demanding mega triathlon involving swimming, cycling and running distances most of us would find exhausting if we were obliged to complete them in the back of a taxi.
It only began in 2011 but the event has established itself as the most relished on the Ironman calendar. Thousands pour into the picturesque little resort, filling the bars, hotels and cafes and crafting ever more elaborate good luck messages into the sandy beach. Such has been the economic benefit it is reckoned
the weekend delivers around £3.5million into local tills.
And the most extraordinary thing about the Tenby Ironman is this: the numbers of locals who participate. In this part of Wales, a pattern has built up over the years of the race’s existence: people who watch once are inspired to slip on the Lycra, pull on the wetsuit and get out there and do it themselves the following year. Such has been the uptake thereabouts, this is now a town that has more triathletes per capita than anywhere else in the world. Take that, Hawaii.
But of all the participants who have crossed the line in the town centre, none can have had the inspirational effect of the bloke on Sunday who finished the gruelling course in a time of 12hr 18min 29sec as he came in 412th out of the field of 2039. Step forward Gareth Thomas, the man who, in the process, conquered one of the deepest prejudices in modern society. That is if, a day after such a demanding physical requirement, he is still capable of making a step forward.
When he first decided to train up for the Ironman, the 45-year-old former Welsh international rugby player was doing it for reasons of personal fulfilment. Like most of the population of Tenby, he had seen people push themselves to the limit swimming, cycling and running through the Pembrokeshire countryside, and was motivated to see if he too could address the challenge. But then on Saturday, everything changed. Obliged by tabloid intrusion to make a personal medical diagnosis public, Thomas had revealed that he had been living with an HIV positive diagnosis for the past eight years.
Despite the enforced revelation of something he had long preferred to keep to himself, he went ahead with his plan to compete. And as he swam and cycled and ran, he did something remarkable: he helped change attitudes.
For years, HIV has been widely assumed by many of us still to be the death sentence it was back in the 1980s. Moreover, there was widespread misunderstanding that anyone who had been thus diagnosed was a threat to public health, a walking time bomb liable to infect anyone with whom they came into contact. Yet here was Thomas demonstrating sufficient well-being to complete the most demanding physical challenge and when he had done so, hugging everyone within a 500-yard radius, including his husband, Steve, to no apparent ill effect. This was not what HIV was thought to look like.
It was a remarkable sight, and one which will doubtless have encouraged dozens of those living with the condition to sign up for next year’s event. Here was living proof that, thanks to advances in medical science, a diagnosis which once prefaced nothing but gloom no longer prevents those affected from doing anything they wish to do. Even put themselves through absolute agony.
In his understandable desire for privacy, Thomas had presumably assumed that nothing beneficial would ever come from the revelation.
On Sunday he was proved wrong. Because here he was, just the day after he had gone public, making probably the boldest statement possible on behalf of those living with HIV: you can do it.
And in the process, he demonstrated that he is the very definition of a sporting hero.