Robert Newton (athlete)

Robert Alan Newton (born June 10 1981, in Nottingham, England) is a British hurdling athlete. As of 2004 he is Britain's number one sprint hurdler. However, competing for Team GB at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Newton failed to qualify for the second round of the 110 m hurdles competition.

He is praised for being Britain's only openly gay professional athlete, as well as for his achievements.

Achievements

 * 1997
 * Amateur Athletics Association U17 400m hurdles gold medal winner
 * 1999
 * English Schools' 110m hurdles hurdles gold medal winner
 * AAA U20 110m hurdles gold medal winner
 * 2000
 * AAA U20 110m hurdles silver medalist
 * 2001
 * AAA U23 110m hurdles gold medal winner
 * 2003
 * Inter-Countries 110m hurdles gold medal winner

Personal bests

 * 110 m hurdles Personal Best: 13.36 in 2004
 * In the UK All-time Top Ten with a 60m hurdles personal best of 7.69, in the 2004 Norwich Union Indoor Trials.

Quote
(From an interview by Joe Galliano in the August 2004 issue of the Gay Times, on being 'out') "My manager said that people will either love me or hate me for doing this. It needs to be out in the open, and I hope I could be a role model to some extent and show people that, really, it's okay to be gay. My experience has been that, though people in sports were stand-offish at first, it wasn't very long before most were okay about it."