Athletes: Funding the Dream
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Athletics isn't the most lucrative sport in the World. Unlike some other hive profile sports, very few Athletes can comfortably retire from athletics and not bother about needing to work again (That is, if they don't want to).
Coupled with that, it is a rigorous discipline that requires talent, focus and extreme dedication in other to succeed. Many athletes invest a lot in their careers, all without a guarantee of becoming successful career wise or financially.
Modern day Athletics is becoming increasingly technical in nature. This means that Success increasing has to do with more than just talent and dedication, but a complex nature of factors. Things such as training facilities and equipment, modern visualizing techniques and simulations, right kind of dieting and even the mental state of Athletes are becoming increasingly important to an Athletes success.
The complexities of training an athlete successfully is generally reflected in the cost. Most athletes require sponsorships to get by with their careers, while some may take to part time jobs in other to live their dream.
Moreover, the financial state of an athlete may impede performance. This is of course validated by a correlation between the average performance of athletes in poorer nations compared to those in richer, more developed countries with better standards of living and welfare packages for citizens, Athletes included.
Of course what this all means is that some athletes are faced with the choice of either giving up on their aspirations of success as competitors, or seeking alternatives to improve funding in other to become more competitive at a regional or World level.
First line of Defense
For most athletes, talent development begins at a young age and the primary source of support is their families. Even for those that come from poorer backgrounds, it does help for an athletes family to identify their talents and try to nurture it to a certain stage as best as they can.
Early development outside of the family also needs a reasonable level of funding. The results of this are obvious, as we have seen with the performance of those who go through the NCAA system for their various countries.
A time comes however, when athletes either venture out on their own or have no option but to seek support in other to continue developing and remain relevant.
Undeterred
For many, the dream of competing and winning at the highest level is enough motivation to go out of their way in seeking funding. The Olympic games were a prime example, as we saw quite a handful of athletes launch Gofundme pages in other to finance their preparations (for some athletes, it was to fund their entire competition) for the games.
We have also Athletes get creative with funding in the past before the widespread adoption of gofuundme as the standard mode of raising funds by athletes. Former World 800m Silver medalist, Nick Symmonds used e-bay to earn himself an extra $11,100 to the London 2012 Olympics (where he finished 5th) when he used his skin as a temporary tattoo canvas for sponsors.
This is so true. Even in rich countries, often the athletes come from middle class or higher wealth classes because their parents can afford to fund them and the poorer kids don't have that opportunity. When I was in college, I took a couple of semesters of ice skating class and when we came in to the rink (it was the city rink, my college just reserved it for the time of the class), we followed an individual skater's practice time. She was learning to do jumps using a harness one day, and I said something like, "wow we might see her at the Olympics one day." One of the teachers said no, she's too old for that. She was only a teenager, but the idea was that by that age, Olympians are already doing jumps without aid, so she was years behind those who would make it that far. So that means, if a young child didn't have access to facilities and coaches, they couldn't possibly make it to the Olympics as an ice skater. Every time I see an event where the competitors are really young like gymnastics, I think even more about that girl and how good she was but 15 or whatever she was at the time was "too old" to be learning to do the hard tricks.