CAITLYN JENNER SAYS she turned to sport as she was trying to be “as masculine as possible”.

The former decathlete won gold for the US at the Montreal Olympics in 1976.

However, she said she turned to sport and was driven to succeed because she felt different.

Speaking to Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late Show on RTÉ, she said, “When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, there wasn’t even a word about gender identity.

“You just knew nothing about it, and so I had no idea why, in my soul, I felt very different than most people. And then, I found sports in the 5th grade.”

“If I would have been average I wouldn’t have needed sports, but I wasn’t average, I had all these things going on in my soul.

I was more obsessed, I was more determined. I worked harder than the next guy and to be honest with you I really thank little Caitlin for living in there because it made me outtrain them. It made me outwork them because I had more to prove than the next guy.

“I was trying to be as masculine as I possibly could.”

She also revealed that her children Kendall and Kim found her dressed in women’s clothes before she revealed her identity as a transgender woman.

Jenner said, “I was extraordinarily discreet and did what I had to do just in order to survive.

“I don’t even remember whose clothes I was trying on but I just got caught a couple of times – once by Kim. Kendall said she caught me but I never knew she caught me.

Kim walked in the house and nobody was in the house and I was dressed.

“It freaked her out a little bit, she didn’t know quite know how to handle it and I called her later and then never talked about it again until years later and she said `what the hell’s going on with you?’ and I sat down and talked to her about it.”

.@Caitlyn_Jenner on how Kim and Kendall had an idea what was happening with her and Brandon's amazing reaction to the news #latelate pic.twitter.com/K5OPkU2pog

— The Late Late Show (@RTELateLateShow) November 10, 2017

Jenner also spoke about her Irish roots on the show.

What most people here in Ireland don’t know about me, is my mother’s maiden name is Esther Maguire. I have Irish ancestry.

“The Jenner name is actually English, so between England and Ireland I have my roots.”

.@Caitlyn_Jenner is one of our own - her mother was a Maguire! #latelate pic.twitter.com/x2Rw7j4l3p

— The Late Late Show (@RTELateLateShow) November 10, 2017