How do Olympians afford to live and train?

I just googled that, and apparently Home Depot ended that Olympic employee program in 2009 due to the economy. But I do remember those commercials.

I once knew a guy that tried to train for the Olympics back in the 90s. Basically had to quit his job and beg for sponsors to give him money to live off of so he could spend all his time working out and training. He was a 6’2 195 lb sprinter and was sure he was going to bring home the gold metal in the 100 yard dash. Sad for him was he didn’t even qualify for the Olympic team and his wife devorced him after all his sponsers fell through and he was jobless. We joke about it with the buds from time to time every summer when the Olympics come on

Sponsors

Essentially every other nation but the USA supports their athletes in some form.

Why do you think the best Pole Vaulter in the history, born and raised in Louisiana, represents Sweden.

Here, he'd be an unpaid assitant at Arkansas or Oregon so he could use their facilities for free with 2-3 very small endorsement deals, and in Sweden he's a multi-millionaire who is worshipped by their society and lives like Nero.

The only Olympians who make real $ off endorsements are the megastars in track (mainly sprinters) and not field events, gymnastics and maybe swimming.

Winter Olympics is even smaller. An all time half pipe snowboarder or figure skater and that's about it. But that's after they win gold medals, unless they are X-games types that have big deals already with energy drinks, appeal companies, etc.

The guy for curling that won silver is a real-estate agent took his vacation and pto to go to the Olympics.

Winter Olympians probably get sponsorship deals from the equipment they use - snowboards, skis, skates, poles, boots, coats, goggles, etc...

I know a guy who was an Olympic cross country skier. He had a regular job and depended on sponsors to fund his training and competitions

A couple things, first of all the athletes from other countries aren’t rich like American professionals. Sure, their countries may pay for them but I’d bet the avg Olympic athlete worldwide makes like $30,000 a year from their country plus gets their expenses covered.

If you are good, it’s not THAT hard to get your expenses covered as an American by sponsors or endorsements. Im not suggesting they will be rich, but $100k-150k in sponsors for someone in medal contention isn’t hard, that’s 3-5 $30k sponsors. The popular sports have competitions that most of them survive off of.

There’s plenty of people that compete in “hobbies” that work: bodybuilders, “professional” fisherman, lumberjacks, etc.

This is partly why I was always more impressed with Bolt than Phelps back when they were both winning multiple gold medals at the same Olympics.

There’s no money in swimming unless you turn out to be the GOAT. And while the same is true of sprinters for the most part, at least foot speed is a highly desirable talent and is developed in many different sports. It’s not all or nothing for track and field if you have sub 10.00 100 m. speed. But no one gives a flying frick about how fast someone can breaststroke outside of that singular event. And a tall, lean freak of nature athlete with options - especially now with NIL - would be a fool to invest their talent in the pool if they can play football or basketball and have far more opportunities to earn fame and money.

If everyone in the world within five years of age of Usain Bolt had been raised a sprinter, I think he still outruns them all and wins just as many medals. I’m not sure the same would be true of Phelps. Hell, Kris Humphries was better than Phelps at a young age before giving up swimming for basketball.