Mark Tewksbury is best known as a gold-medal-winning Olympic swimmer. His remarkable sixteen-year athletic career included three Olympic medals, numerous world records, and inductions into three major halls of fame: the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, and the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Although retired as an athlete, Tewksbury remains a highly respected public figure. He delivered prized swimming analysis for the CBC from the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, hosts the Discovery Channel's popular How It's Made show, and is Co-President of the first World Outgames, Montreal 2006.
Tewksbury has spoken to millions as part of his eighteen-year speaking career and remains much in demand as an inspirational speaker to companies and organizations around the world. For his active humanitarianism, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Western Ontario in 2001, and in 2005 Tewksbury was awarded the International Person of the Year Award at S?o Paulo Pride in Brazil. He currently lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
For more on Mark Tewksbury, please visit www.MarkTewksbury.com
"To reach the pinnacle of Olympic Swimming takes incredible dedication, resilience and courage that few possess. To reach your true self takes these attributes and a great deal more courage so, therefore, even fewer arrive at this point in their lives. Mark Tewksbury is one of these courageous people who achieve so much and through pain, suffering, daring, and pure fight, become who they truly are, inside and out."
--Duncan Armstrong O.A.M., Australian Olympic Swimming Legend
Mark Tewksbury burst onto the international scene following a thrilling come-from-behind victory in the 100-metre backstroke at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games. This gold-medal performance, the last one by a Canadian swimmer, capped a remarkable sixteen-year athletic career, which included three Olympic medals, four gold medals at the Commonwealth Games, seven world records, and a cover appearance on
Time magazine. He was chosen as Canada’s Athlete of the Year and inducted into three major halls of fame. But in this celebrated life, all was not as it appeared.
Mark Tewksbury faced all the challenges of a high-performance athlete—the discipline, sacrifices, intense pressure, and post-Olympic transition. But he also had to overcome the difficult personal challenge of coming out as a gay man—first to his family and confidants, and then ultimately under the spotlight of the public eye. Tewksbury’s intense feeling of difference early in life paints a poignant and unique portrait of a complex individual.
Once the elite athlete, now an accomplished and natural storyteller, Tewksbury uses his own story—public and private—to offer a fascinating insight into the worlds of Olympic politics, media, fame, gay life, and sport leadership. He takes us from growing up gay in conservative western Canada, through the pain of keeping his true self a secret even as he was fêted on the world stage, and ultimately to coming out, being able to live his whole life to the fullest, and to make a difference in life.
Moving, humorous, motivational, sometimes painful, but always direct, Inside Out reminds us that living with integrity is not always straightforward, but is certainly worth an honest pursuit. More than one man’s compelling story, Inside Out is an inspiration for anyone facing a personal conflict, revealing that the most insurmountable challenges can be transformed into the ultimate triumph of a full life worth living.
