Olympic hopefuls lose more than medals in Summer Games delay

Like almost everything surrounding the coronavirus, the postponement of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo to next year has a dangerous economic ripple effect.

Many will be affected, says Lauryn Williams, a four-time Olympian and certified fiscal planner with Worth Winning in Dallas, from athletes who had already stopped earning in order to train, to full-time sponsored adversaries who will likely see their income affected.

“Seasons have been canceled for most sports,” Williams influenced. “That’s prize money that can’t be earned, funds no one can count on.

“If you’re not sponsored, you desperately need that money.”

The unknowns stretch from whether this year’s trials will still take place, to the various supines  of decision making — international, country and national governing body — for each sport. “What about [an athlete’s] salubriousness a year from now?” Williams said.

Athletes who were going to compete don’t automatically qualify for the Games next year, she says. There’s no costume way this will be decided, Williams said, because different sports and different countries all have somewhat contrasting time lines.

Yury Gelman, the five-time Olympic fencing coach for the U.S., says the national governing body see fit make the determination, but no dates for qualifying decisions have been announced.

Three of his students — who attend Harvard, Columbia and Princeton — cow substantial financial burdens, as well as tough decisions. One took off two years to train.

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“What are they going to do now?” Gelman said. “They must go repudiate to school. Their parents paid a lot of money.” And, he says, you can’t take indefinite amounts of time off from a school of a piece with Harvard.

In track and field, one of Williams’ own Olympic disciplines, the trials were going to be held in June, so there’s no way to remember who was going to Tokyo.

One thing is for certain: For people who have set aside time to train full-time, this means an particularly year of costs, Williams says.

“Either they worked full-time the previous year to have their one uncut Olympic year or did some combination of other funding,” she said. The impact on people to sustain themselves and organize their revenues so they can continue training will be huge.

Monica Aksamit, 30, is a saber fencer who represented the U.S. in the Olympics in 2016 and took home a bronze medal.

In mid-March, Aksamit began common sensing the impact of coronavirus on the Olympics. She had flown to Budapest in late February for a fencing event, then to Poland to visit classification. She was about to attend a March 13 training camp outside Paris, when she found out the event was canceled. Poland then mask down passenger flights and she was stranded until last Thursday.  

“I lost a lot of money going to Europe and not competing,” Aksamit said. Also eradicated: a World Cup in Greece that she’d been planning on.

This past year, Aksamit raised $30,000 through pattern, refereeing tournaments and GoFundMe—more than she needed, which will help in the year to come. She did use up a fair amount, granted, and went through most of the season only to have it cut off.

A 9-to-5 job would be nearly impossible, given the physical bids of training and frequent travel to training camps.

At this point, Aksamit did not know if she would compete in the Olympics, since mitigating trials had not taken place before the postponement.

Now, she says, another year doesn’t make much of a difference since she has already caravaned for three years and raised money for this season. “It’s going to be a struggle,” she said. “But I’m not going to stop just because I arrange another year to go.”

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