There were three life-changing moments during Maxim Bouchard’s diving career.
The first, in 2010, was nearly fatal. The Canadian was preparing to dive at an exhibition show in the Philippines when the wooden platform he was jumping on collapsed.
Instead of hitting the pool, he plummeted into a concrete ditch.
With blood spilling from a head wound, and fractures and lacerations on his limbs and back, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors stitched him up and inserted a metal plate in his left arm.
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Then at 19, he couldn’t lift his hand for six months and was told he would never dive again.
Incredibly, Bouchard worked his way back to elite competition within just 18 months. He finished fourth in Canada’s trials for the 2012 Olympics in London; was national champion in 10m platform and synchro the following year; a finalist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games; and made his World Championship debut in 2015.
Bouchard had long nurtured an Olympic dream, but this became a burning ambition after his accident. As his performances became more consistent, he was looking for the extra psychological boost that might get him to the Games.
He unlocked it via the second life-changing moment of his career.
“I was holding so much inside,” he tells Outsports. “When I came back from my accident, I had been so focused on just getting back to diving. But now I was thinking, maybe it’s time to come out.”
Bouchard had tried to ignore his sexuality up to that point — “I’ve always been someone that keeps everything to myself” — and there was little incentive to embrace it, with certain coaches in the Canada set-up exhibiting homophobic attitudes.
“It would be how they were behaving, or little comments they would throw in. They would use words like ‘f****t’.
“Because of that, I wasn’t comfortable to be openly gay around them. It wasn’t the greatest ambience.”
Bouchard did have faith in his teammates, however. In January 2016, he decided to share his personal news with the group at a Grand Prix event in Germany.
“I got the best support. It was great,” he recalls. “They were glad that I had come out to them, and had trusted them.”
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He flew home to Quebec and told his family, who reacted positively, as he was sure they would. Yet that had also been a difficult part of the journey. “My brother is gay, which created added pressure, in my head.
“I’d also been teased in high school — kids would say ‘you’re gay’ just because I was a diver. It was as if coming out would prove them right. That made me hesitant too, thinking it would define me as a person.
“It seems stupid looking back, because coming out wasn’t an issue for anyone in my family. It was just me putting the pressure on myself.”
Now Bouchard could be completely authentic — but time was running out before the Olympic rosters had to be confirmed. Would diving without that weight of worry make any difference?
What happened next is something he wants more people in sports to understand, particularly those LGBTQ athletes who will compete at Paris 2024 and who are still closeted.
Letting go, finding love
The Diving World Cup was held in Rio in February 2016 as a test event ahead of the Games. With Olympic quota places up for grabs, this was a crucial competition.
Bouchard remembers feeling “more confident, more comfortable” as he stood on the diving board: “It was pleasant to be myself rather than trying to be someone I’m not.”
He improved his scores in each of the three rounds, finishing seventh with a personal best 452.50 — a career-high, and the best individual performance by a Canadian male diver since Alexandre Despatie’s medal haul of the previous decade.
Bouchard also achieved the result despite feeling he didn’t have the full support of his coaches. “I proved them wrong. One had even told me that my coming out would be a distraction and that I should have waited until after the Olympics.
“Actually, it was the opposite.”
The “distraction” comment really frustrated Bouchard. It wasn’t as if he had come out publicly via an interview or social media, even though he hugely admired fellow divers who had done so, like Matthew Mitcham, Mathew Helm and Tom Daley.
What that coach couldn’t comprehend was the internal distraction that being closeted had caused Bouchard. Keeping it bottled up until after Rio would have been too late.
“Life is short. You could be crossing the street tomorrow and get hit by a car,” he says.
“I was just waiting for the right moment for me. And that week I’d had in Germany was really intense. The only moment I wouldn’t be crying was when I was in the pool.”
The emotional release was liberating for Bouchard and his results reflected his newfound peace of mind. In the five World Series and Grand Prix events held in the following weeks, he never finished lower than sixth.
During one of those events, held in Dubai, he met fashion designer Babak Golkar. There was “instant” attraction and they quickly became long-distance boyfriends. Eight years later, they are still together and now living in Quebec where they run a digital marketing agency based between Canada, L.A. and Dubai.
On the agency’s website, Bouchard’s bio mentions how he “showcased his skill and determination on the world stage at the Rio 2016 Olympics.”
He made it to the Games because of his seventh-place finish at the World Cup four months earlier, which ended up earning Canada an extra spot under the quota system.
“I had to come out, because otherwise I wouldn’t have made the Olympics. I truly believe that,” he says.
In Rio, he had to wait until the penultimate day of competition at the Games to take his place on the 10m platform as an Olympian. He finished 19th, squeezed out of being in the semi-final by just one spot.
After all he had endured, physically and mentally, a top-20 place at an Olympic Games was a remarkable achievement.
After competing, he wrote on Instagram: “Thank you to Team Canada and The Olympics for this life-changing moment… It’s time to move forward and conquer more mountains and do better! Looking forward to so many adventures this year and many years to come.”
Three moments — one accidental, one authentic, one high-achieving — that built Bouchard into the man he is today.
Now he is excited to watch the new generation of divers take their place at Paris 2024, and hugely encouraged by the Team LGBTQ representation at the Games overall.
“It’s incredible. We have athletes who have been great pioneers and advocates, making sports more open and welcoming,” he says.
“That has paved the way for this new generation that can be themselves, without any bad influences around them. It seems like they’re having a lot of fun and I’m so happy for them.
“I hope that sharing my story can help anyone who needs to read it.”
