Gold in Innsbruck, and then the truth
He wanted to dance, but his father forbade it. John Curry became Olympic champion and openly gay, in the middle of the seventies.
On 9 September 1949, a boy was born in Birmingham who wanted to become a dancer. His father did not think dancing was a proper thing for a boy. Figure skating, on the other hand, he accepted, and so John Curry first stepped onto the ice as a child. The compromise later became an art of its own.
Curry brought classical ballet and modern dance onto a surface where strength and jumps had otherwise counted most. After his father's death he moved to London, then to the USA, where a sponsor gave him the freedom to train and the coaches Gus Lussi and Carlo Fassi took him further. In 1976 everything came together. The British title, the European Championship, Olympic gold in Innsbruck, and shortly afterwards the world title in Gothenburg. His free skate to music from "Don Quixote" was built like a choreography for the theatre. He became the first Briton ever to win Olympic gold in figure skating, was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
And in the middle of those weeks it became public that Curry was gay. This was no footnote. In elite sport in the seventies, homosexuality was something one did not mention, and Curry was one of the first prominent sportsmen to be open about it. He did not withdraw, but built up his own ice show, the John Curry Theatre of Skating, and worked with choreographers such as Twyla Tharp and Kenneth MacMillan.
In 1987 he was diagnosed with HIV, and in 1991 with AIDS. He spoke about it at a time when most kept silent. On 15 April 1994 he died at his mother's house in Warwickshire, aged forty-four. Since 2017, a blue plaque has hung in Birmingham on the house where he grew up. It names the world champion and the Olympic champion.