‘The focus had to be on the ice’: Robin Cousins on skating and his double life as a gay Olympian

Robin Cousins says naturally being a private person helped eased the toll of not being openly gay while competing. Photograph: Andrew Hasson/The Observer

‘I will be very proud to be in the room, and to have that acknowledgment,” Robin Cousins says as he anticipates his emotions when, on Tuesday evening, he will be among the former winners invited to the 70th edition of the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.

Cousins won the award in 1980, the year he became the Olympic figure skating champion at a time when it was almost impossible for him to reveal openly that he was gay. “I was not around in the beginning [when the BBC launched their programme in 1953],” jokes the 66-year-old, “but I will enjoy looking back. I’m sure I’ll be sitting alongside Jayne [Torvill] and Chris [Dean] again.”