I desire them to understand the genuine Dan – JervisHosts: Birmingham Dates: 28 July-8 AugustCoverage: Watch live on BBC TV with additional streams on BBC iPlayer, Red Button, BBC Sport site and BBC Sport mobile app”It took 24 years to be who I was, however now I’m pleased. I appearance in the mirror and I like who I am.” A broad smile spreads throughout Dan Jervis’ face as he states those words. Fresh from completing at the World Championships in Budapest, the Welsh range swimmer is weeks away from his 3rd successive Commonwealth Games. In Birmingham, he’ll appearance to include a 1500m freestyle gold to the bronze won in Glasgow in 2014, and the silver made on the Gold Coast 4 years back. The self-described ‘Valley kid’ will go into the Games complete of self-confidence – havingactually reached the 1500m last on his Olympic launching in Tokyo last year, endingup 5th. But his positivity hasactually been driven as much by modifications in his individual life as occasions in the swimmingpool – with Jervis now prepared to talk openly for the veryfirst time about the reality he is gay. In 2 special interviews with the BBC’s LGBT Sport Podcast and BBC Sport Wales, Jervis shares his story. The LGBT Sport Podcast: The One with Dan Jervis’The swimmingpools had shut – I was training for the Olympics in a lake’Jervis took Commonwealth Games silver in 2018, with Australia winning gold through Jack McLoughlin and bronze thanks to Mack HortonIn the little town of Resolven where Jervis grew up, rugby guidelines. But from the minute his grandparents took him to the regional swimmingpool, swimming was the sport for him. “My claim to popularity is that I might do 10 metres without armbands when I was one,” Jervis chuckles. “Swimming was my interest. It was the thing I’d gelled to and felt safe in, and I liked that when I went to school, there weren’t any other swimmers I understood of. This sounds so bad, however I wasn’t the most scholastic and I liked having something that I was muchbetter at than the others. “If you’d asked me 18 years ago, my dream was constantly to go to the Olympics and win an Olympic gold medal – and it still is now.” The Welshman accomplished the veryfirst part of that dream in 2021, although as all the Olympians in Tokyo discovered, preparation wasn’t simple. As the Covid pandemic triggered the Games to be postponed for a year, Jervis had to adjust his training. “It was mostlikely the most demanding coupleof months of my whole life,” Jervis confesses. “The swimmingpools had shut, I’d moved house t
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