Originally appeared on E! Online
If Olympic athletes are lucky, their sport is their day job.
But for every Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky, Noah Lyles and member of the U.S. men’s basketball team (any one of whom could finance an entire women’s water polo squad), there are exponentially more who worked for a shot at a medal from the 2024 Olympics in Paris while busily toiling at something else.
Not least because, even if they’re considered elite competitors, it costs money to train, travel and be competition-ready on any stage, let alone the world’s biggest.
Not everyone can swing a nine-to-five, of course. And many are students of middling means — after seeing Veronica Fraley’s post about her plight on X, Alexis Ohanian and Flavor Flav are going halfsies on the Vanderbilt student-athlete’s rent so she can focus on discus throwing — while others are constantly fund-raising or seeking that life-changing sponsorship.
But …