In Europe too, there have been essentially no professional athletes who openly came out, so far, and the major team sports are pretty much the only part of society in which blatant homophobia is still tolerated. Exactly one Premier League (British soccer) player ever came out - twenty years ago, and he committed suicide after his career due to an accusation of rape. Since then, nothing. I read somewhere recently, that of the roughly 10 000 athletes participating in the most recent Olympics, exactly one was openly gay.

So yeah, I can see where the cynicism comes from if this is indeed an end of career player who never made it big anyway, but homosexuality in professional sports is a big deal, and we absolutely should care.