The delay of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic has already had far-reaching financial impacts on a wide range of parties, from Tokyo event organizers to ticket sellers to American travel and hospitality businesses.
But it has also meant a surprise extra year of training, waiting, and working for Olympics-hopeful athletes. As former Team USA sprinter Justin Gatlin told Yahoo Finance in March, “I think who this really affects is the athletes who don’t have independent contracts with a shoe company, so they go around to meets and that’s how they make their money. Essentially, they’re not making any money this year at all, it’s a wash for them.”
Phelps’s message to Olympic athletes amid the pandemic
The year-long delay is “probably more of a mental challenge than anything else,” says 23-time Gold medalist Team USA swimmer Michael Phelps, who has competed in four Summer Games.
“As an Olympic athlete, we kind of work in four-year quads,” Phelps said on Yahoo Finance Live on Wednesday. “So you’re trying to not only get physically ready, but mentally ready as well, and then you get a wrench thrown in there, you can kind of go crazy and lose control over what you’re trying to do.”
His advice to those athletes thrown by the uncertainty of 2020 and now training to make the Tokyo Olympics in 2021: “Do what you can control, focus on what you can control. Training, making sure you’re loose, stretching, lifting, whatever you can, always try and do.”
Since retiring from Olympic competition after the 2016 Rio Games as the most decorated Olympian of all time, Phelps has made mental health his core public platform. He has partnered with therapy app Talkspace and with Colgate on the Colgate Optimism Project, a leadership initiative that identifies “optimistic young leaders who are taking active steps to change their community” and gives them funding to continue their efforts.
“Going into this pandemic, I was afraid and worried for everyone’s mental health,” Phelps says. “And I hope this is a time that we’ve all been able to take that step back, or take that extra breath that we need, to ground ourselves and make sure we’re being our best selves.”
Phelps still a ‘strong believer in Under Armour’
He’s also still one of the most prominent Under Armour sponsored athletes, and in 2016 his “Rule Yourself” ad spot was one of the most widely-shared Olympic ad spots ever.
The underdog sportswear brand has struggled in the last few years, since long before the pandemic, as its U.S. sales have declined in eight consecutive quarters, and is now exiting some of its expensive school apparel sponsorships in an effort to shrink and focus on profitability.
But Phelps is still a believer in the company Kevin Plank built.
“I'm somebody that knows numbers, I'm an absolute geek on numbers,” Phelps said when asked whether he has followed the company’s financial challenges. “I have always been a strong believer in Under Armour, that's why I'm with them. As a Baltimore-based brand, and knowing Kevin as well as I do, he has become a real big visionary, one of the biggest visionaries I’ve met... I love what we're doing right now, we’ve got some cool stuff coming out, we have a new campaign we’re about to launch. I’m a kid in a candy store. Once I retired from something that I did for so long, I still get to do what I love to do, and try to push the importance of healthy and active lifestyles.”
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Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and specializes in sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
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