Paris Olympics: meet the American hoping to be first man to compete in a women’s sport – aged 45
- Several men are clamouring to join the fray in Paris in what was previously a women-only domain
- Bill May is battling rivals more than 20 years younger as he chases an ‘opportunity of a lifetime’
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Bill May is hoping to create history this weekend and become the first man to secure a spot in the USA artistic swimming team.
Until this year, artistic swimming – the new name for synchronised swimming – was a female-only domain, leaving May to cheer on from the sidelines.
At 45 years old, it was assumed his chance was gone, but he will be battling with teammates over 20 years his junior when he competes at the newly built Aquatics Centre in Paris.
If May makes the final eight as the team is cut down from its 12 team members, it will fulfil the dream he has been living for 35 years.
“To say that I’m going to the Olympic Games, it’s something almost unimaginable, because it’s something that I thought that I would never be able to do during my career,” he said at the team’s Olympic training base at Eaubonne, outside the French capital.
May, who took up the sport when he was 10 to compete with his sister, was given the big news just before Christmas 2022.
“I got a call from a friend and he said: ‘Hey, you’re the first person to know that they’re putting men into the Olympics. He said: “‘Are you going to do it?’ And I said: ‘This is my life’,” May explained.
May was a high achiever during the first part of his career, winning the duet at the US national championships and being named the US Synchronised Swimming Athlete of the Year in 1998 and 1999.
But with no place for men at the swimming world championships or the Olympics, May hung up his competitive noseclip in 2004, going on to perform in the water for the Cirque du Soleil.
Then came the news that men would be allowed to compete in the world championships in Kazan in 2015 and May came out of retirement.
“Without one thought, I said: ‘I’ll do it, no matter what,” May added. “I don’t care if I’m dead last.
“I just want to be there. I want to show the world that men should be accepted into the sport of artistic swimming’.”
On July 26, 2015, he made history, becoming the first man ever to claim artistic swimming gold at a major event by winning the mixed duet technical routine gold with his partner Christina Jones.
They took silver in the free routine and May went on to win medals at world championships in Budapest in 2017, Fukuoka in 2023 and Doha in February this year.
“It was a great opportunity for myself but also to show the growth of the sport,” he said. “It was also to inspire other male athletes or other athletes that want to represent diversity in any sport, to see that they can have a dream and push for that dream and nothing can stop them.”
At the Olympics there is no switching of team members for the three events. The same eight chosen must compete in the technical, free and acrobatic programmes on three successive nights.
He said: “I never felt that I was out of place until people asked me: ‘Why are you doing this sport? You’re the only man.’
“I never thought that it was anything different than any other athlete at a young age wanting to try something new, wanting to try something that they love.
“So this is an opportunity of a lifetime. With the Olympic Games, you’ll see a man included. And I want a small athlete to say: ‘Hey, that’s going to be me one day.’”
