Tokyo readies for 2020 Games
that most of us never could.
Still, that glory doesn’t come cheap. So to fund their dreams, Olympians set up crowd-funding websites, look for jobs with odd hours that won’t interfere with practice, or work overtime to save up money in the offseason so they can cut back when it’s time to hit the road.
Hebert works as a sales manager for a land surveying company in Calgary. Because his company is one of the curling team’s sponsors, his bosses have given him flexibility with his schedule. But it’s still not easy.
His wife has to handle the care for their 4-year-old daughter and 8-month-old son while he’s competing.
“There’s a lot that goes into the sacrifice of being an amateur athlete at the Olympics, but being here and seeing all the other ath- letes in the opening ceremonies and competing for medals, that’s why you do it,” he said. “There’s a lot of really, really good Canadian curlers, athletes that sacrifice just as much as we do, and they’re not here. So we’re the lucky ones.”
Working as a plumber has provided U.S. snowboard-cross rider Jonathan Cheever with access to ample job opportunities and quick cash. It’s also given him links to sponsors in the plumbing industry, some of whom have backed him for 10 years.
“I travel the world in snowboard. My biggest complaint is I run up credit card debt, but like in the grand scheme of things, life is really good,” said Cheever, who finished 28th.
The injuries that often accompany athletes’ Olym- pic dreams can amplify their financial woes. French free- style skier Anais Caradeux showed up to the 2014 Sochi Games on crutches after suffering a serious knee injury three weeks earlier. She was determined to compete in the halfpipe and ended up crashing so hard that it took her years to fully recover.
While she was recuper- ating, Caradeux’s sponsors abandoned her. Between travel, coaching and prac- tice fees, one season alone costs around 35,000 Euros ($43,000), Caradeux says. So she began working in mar- kets as a temporary tattoo artist. She spent the money she made wisely, carefully choosing where and when to train.
“It’s been challenging the past few years to have to deal with money issues plus the body issues,” she said. “It does bring your spirit down a little bit because you feel like ... asking yourself if you’re really, really on the right path, you know?”
Yet like many Olympians, she continued to push through the financial and physical pain.
NTokyo used its famous 1964 Olympics to show off a miraculous recovery from defeat in World War II. Japan was back after just 19 years with high-speed trains and dazzling efficiency.
Tokyo’s back again with the 2020 Summer Olympics, this time with something different to prove. The Japanese capital wants to remind the world that China and South Korea haven’t left behind the first East Asian economic power. They’ll offer a clean, safe, innovative city; an urban maze of nightlife, shopping, and dizzying subway lines that give texture to “Cool Japan” and the country’s place as a cultural touchstone.
“It’s going to be a good opportunity to showcase Japanese culture, our technology, our products, to give impetus to the economy,” said Maki Kobayashi-Terada of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“It’s exactly soft power ... to create economic impact,” Kobayashi-Terada added, a fancy term that means translating an engaging culture into political and economic power.
Tokyo has billed itself as a “safe pair of hands” for the Olympics, which is everything that Rio de Janeiro wasn’t. The 2016 Games left behind scandals, millions in unpaid bills and useless “white elephant” venues.
Tokyo also marks a watershed for the battered International Olympic Committee.
r corruption dogged the games in Rio, and a doping scandal grew out of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Tokyo should be the first of three return-to-normal Summer Games in first-world metropolises. The IOC has already picked Paris for 2024 and Los Angeles for 2028.
And Japan also has hosted two successful Winter Olympics in Nagano and Sapporo.
“I don’t think the International Olympic Committee is going to go to a developing city any longer,” Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said. “They don’t want that anymore. They want cities that are ready.”
The Pyeongchang Olympics were Wallechinsky’s 18th, and he has researched every Olympics extensively, including Tokyo. Those Olympics kicked off when Yoshinori Sakai — born in Hiroshima the day the city was hit by the 1945 atomic
the Olympic caul-