Openly Gay Aussie Climber Campbell Harrison Achieving Olympic Dreams

Campbell Harrison, an out Aussie climber, is headed for Olympic glory, having qualified for next summer's games in Paris, Australian newspaper the Star Observer reported.

"According to Olympics.com, Harrison, 26, won the men's Boulder and Lead Olympic qualifier competition," the newspaper detailed. "His score of 154.1 sent him from third to the first place."

Harrison's qualification fulfills a dream he has spoken of openly as he has literally climbed toward that lofty goal, the newspaper noted.

"In November 2022, Harrison won two titles at the Sport Climbing Australia national championships," the Star Observer recalled. "He won the title for the lead, where climbers climb as high as they can in a certain timeframe. He also won a title in combined, which combines a few challenges in one climb."

"In an interview with Outsports at the time, Harrison spoke about his Olympic ambitions," the newspaper went on to recount.

"I definitely have big dreams to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics," the athlete told the LGBTQ+ athletics news site.

Even before that, Harrison made no bones about both his outness and his pride. In 2021 he wrote an intimate personal essay for Climbing.com in which he declared, "Queerness is not a deficit that I was unfortunate to be born with, it's an asset that both sets me apart from the crowd and connects me to so many others."

"By embracing myself as both a gay man and an athlete I have the ability to assure young people, who may be feeling the apprehension that I did, that gay people are not only all around us, but we don't have to hide who we are to get respect," the athlete added.

Harrison's essay recounted his fundamental sense of being different even as a young child and his growing realization that no matter how he tried to blend in, there was no disguising the "strong degree of both masculinity and femininity in the way I behave and present myself."

"I had always hoped that through this sport I would find a haven of strong, queer climbers within which I could foster the sense of belonging that I had always yearned for. As I grew older I increasingly felt that this was not the experience I was going to have," he said.

Still, he embraced authenticity to the extent he felt ready, coming out to select family and friends - though, he wrote, it didn't become that sense of belonging he wanted.

"In the gym, at the crag, and around the campfire, I would be endlessly probed with generally well meaning but ultimately tiresome questions," the climber recounted. "These questions would range from how I came to know what I was and my experience as a gay man in the climbing scene, to whether or not my parents were approving of my 'choice' to be a homosexual."

"I did my utmost to educate and inform the people around me, but often found myself longing for a place where it wouldn't feel like this responsibility fell solely on me."

Eventually, it didn't. "A few years ago a newly formed queer climbing association called the ClimbingQTs reached out to me and expressed their interest in having me speak at a panel discussion event they were holding," Harrison recalled - and that turned out to be a point "where all of this began to change."

Wrote Harrison: "I reflected on the themes of my youth: the desperation with which I would try to hide who I was, and the longing I held for someone else in the community that I could look up to. I realized very quickly that I felt a strong intrinsic responsibility to be that person for other young and potentially struggling queer people."

"With all of the things that I had accomplished, I had a powerful opportunity to be that person for others - the one who would wear their queerness with pride and honor alongside their accomplishments, not in spite of them."

It's a role he has embraced with the same zeal and drive that has carried him so high in his athletic ambitions. Following his Olympics-qualifying feat, the champion climber took to Instagram to share the happy news and a video of the moment, which he called "the culmination of more than a decade of blood, sweat, tears, and utter heartbreak."

"The pressure I felt going into this final was physically painful, to the point where I didn't know that I could stand it," Harrison added, before thanking a long list of supporters, including "my queer community 🏳️‍🌈 May those who detest us forever fuck off."

Harrison made sure to include his partner, Justin, in his thank yous, writing, "you truly have been everything to me over the past 4 years. This is your victory, as it is mine ❤️"

LGBTQ+ Olympians in past competitions have seen their personal lives and significant others edited or ignored. Even if next year's Olympics prove to be so retrograde, Harrison's fans will know about the climber's special someone, as Justin appears frequently in Harrison's Instagram posts.

Take a look at those posts, as well as some of the pics Harrison has put up that show him in action.