Tom Bosworth: Retiring British racewalker says career was not 'supposed to happen to me'
One early autumn evening in 2001, a skinny boy with a shock of flame hair followed his big sister along to a local athletics track.
m Bosworth was, in his words "rubbish at PE but wanted to keep fit". In truth he was not much better at this either. In his first race, he finished last. He came back the following week, but finished last again. He kept coming back.
week that skinny lad with the flame hair, now 32, retires from athletics as a double-Olympian with multiple world records, 21 British titles and a Commonwealth Games silver medal to his name.
"None of this was supposed to happen to me," said Bosworth after bringing down the curtain on a storied race walking career on Monday with one final 3km race around that same track in Tonbridge, Kent.
"Sport was never meant to be for someone like me, a skinny lad who was rubbish at PE. I just turned up to enjoy it and keep fit - it was never meant to be anything else. I just kept turning up, coming back and giving my all. It led me to all of this."
By "this", Bosworth is referring to his position as someone who has transcended his event to become one of the more recognisable British athletes to have pulled on a vest over the past decade.
In October 2015 the British number one came out as gay on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire show and since then has become a high profile ambassador in the LGBT+ community and a steering force behind the Athletics Pride Network, launched in 2020. 
Footage went viral of him proposing to boyfriend Harry Dineley on Copacabana Beach in Rio after a stunning sixth-place finish at his first Olympic Games in 2016.
Bosworth admitted: "I'd always planned to do it there, but I never expected for the race to go like that or to finish that high. It was a month when our lives changed forever and it'll always be special."
Bosworth says he fully embraces his role-model status, adding: "I'm proud of it, though it was accidental to be honest. I am just literally being me. I was just tired of hiding so I put it out there."
While he feels he has been embraced by most in his sport, he admits: "Athletics is so diverse and you don't realise quite what the environment is like out there, especially within sport. 
"It has opened my eyes to a world that saddens me, but even so I have no regrets about doing it, ever."
Bosworth claims popularising a sport which he admits "looks a little silly" prepared him for the challenge. 
"I am very proud of bringing race walking to the athletics masses - with the support of a lot of other people, of course," he added.
"It's a little bit of a weird event but helping people to learn how hard it is, getting the technique right, then doing it for 20km, then doing it at faster speed than many people run at… it's difficult. 
"It was the same with living openly and being who I am. Everyone embraced that eventually."
While he is already on the lookout for "crazy ideas" for new challenges, Bosworth is looking forward to transitioning to "normal" life - and first up is his stag do in Madrid before his wedding in October. 
He will be appearing on TV in the Celebrity Chase in the coming weeks and is more than open to a spot in 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' this winter, should the producers call.
Unlike many of his Team GB peers, Bosworth did not get to experience the magic of the London Olympics, but says the defining moment of his career came in La Coruna, Spain, six weeks before it. 
Despite smashing his own personal best in the 20km race walk by more than a minute, his finishing time of just under 85 minutes was an agonising 19 seconds shy of the qualifying time for London 2012.
He admitted: "Not qualifying gave me the boot up the backside I probably needed - I never wanted to feel like that or be in that position again. 
"Maybe if I went to London and finished in the top 30 or 40 that would have been enough - London was such a spectacular event and maybe I would never have had that motivation to go on and do more in sport. I am so glad, in a way, that I didn't go."
Unlike on his first visit all those years ago, Bosworth left the track as a winner. He led a field of 21 walkers from under-13s to over-50s home in front of a crowd including Winter Olympic gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold and athletics royalty Julie Asher-Smith, mother of sprinter Dina, and Geoff Wightman, father of 1500m world champion Jake, at a meeting to mark 75 years of Tonbridge AC.
"My aim was always to go on until Paris, a third Olympics, but my body started to break down and I said I didn't want to go to championships just to finish," admitted Bosworth.
"I wanted it to end like this, on my home track against walkers of all ages, because that's what race walking is about, and that's the sort of race I started out with. It was never about results or the time, it was a celebration. 
"I had the emotion and sadness after the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham when I thought 'I am not going to do this ever again'. It really hit home, but as soon as it was over I thought 'no, I don't want to do that ever again, it hurts so bad'. Now I just feel massive relief.
"It's been a lot of sacrifice over the past 15 years in particular, but it all feels worth it. I'm lucky to be able to say enough is enough - not all athletes get to do that - and I can look back with pride on everything I've achieved."