Whether planned or unplanned, an Olympic athlete’s retirement is unavoidable.
“It’s the one inevitability. It doesn’t matter how successful you are as an athlete or how long or short your career is. Once you start, the one guarantee is that at some point it will stop,” said Katherine Grainger, a former Olympic rower and Chair of UK Sport.
While Grainger was able to retire on her own terms, other elite athletes like Andrew Steele did not.
The former British sprinter won a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics, but he narrowly missed out on the London Summer Games due to an injury at the start of the year.
“Missing out on London in 2012 was almost like a death of a close family member. It was so traumatic, because my entire identity was tied to the fact that I was an Olympic athlete,” Steele told CNBC Sport.
“I didn’t really know how to interact with society because I felt like my entire identity and my entire worth has just been completely exploded,” he added.
The sporting world is slowly clocking in on the additional support needed for retiring athletes, whether that be with planning their next steps or mental health.
“Historically, there was no real thought given to sports people after they retire. The sporting world just washed their hands of them,” said Ben Bloom, a sports journalist who has covered the Olympic Games.
“Over the last 10-20 years, there is a lot more importance placed on planning your future career. There are a lot of programs, educational instructors in place to help athletes prepare for what they’re going to do,” he said.
So, how do Olympic athletes reinvent themselves once their sporting careers end? Watch the final episode of The Business of Elite Athletes above.
Did you miss parts one and two? Learn how aspiring Olympians fund their early careers here, as well as how they attempt to monetize their careers at their peak by watching the video here.
