You wouldn’t believe what these five Tokyo 2020 Olympics champions are doing now!
From Allyson Felix teaming up with Pampers to bring up the first-ever nursery at the Olympic Games Village in Paris to Dame Laura Kenny joining the BBC broadcast team to cover the events, here are some vocations which the Tokyo Olympic champions have taken up after retirement.
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Allyson Felix
The most decorated female track-and-field athlete with 11 Olympic medals, Allyson Felix, shelved her running shoes at the end of the 2022 season.
In Tokyo, she won the bronze medal in the 400m event, and topped it off with a gold medal in the women’s 4x400m relay, a joy shared with teammates Sydney-McLaughlin-Levrone, Athing Mu, and Dalilah Muhammad.
After dominating the tracks for almost two decades, she now runs her business Saysh — a brand dedicated to creating running shoes for women. It’s been five years since Felix started the company along with her sibling after the athlete’s split with long time sponsor Nike, which had moved to offer her a 70 per cent pay cut.
Currently, she’s busy bringing up her child and also partnering up with different global brands with an aim to help mothers and pregnant women to make sure they don’t face the problems she did.
For the Paris 2024 Olympics, Felix has partnered up with Pampers to bring up a nursery at the Athletes Village – a first-ever of its kind at the Games.
Laura Kenny
Having recently retired from the velodrome with five Olympic gold medals under her belt, Dame Laura Kenny was seen sharing the Royal Box with fellow sportspersons at the Centre Court during this year’s Wimbledon, .
She will be part of the BBC Sport team, covering the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics.
In the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Kenny clinched the gold in the women’s Madison event with Katie Archibald. She also picked up silver in the Team Pursuit event.
Sue Bird
The basketball great from the USA led the country to its ninth Olympic gold medal, which was also Bird’s fifth in her illustrious career.
After giving up dribbling the ball on the court professionally back in 2022, Bird now takes part in various business and creative ventures, mostly alongside her partner and football great Megan Rapinoe.
In April earlier this year, Bird and Rapinoe announced that they would be producing a lesbian love story series called ‘Cleat Cute’, based on the novel written by Meryl Wilsner.
More recently, Bird’s name was in the news for being one of the producers of an Amazon Prime Video documentary called ‘Power of the Dream’, which is based on what WNBA players were going through during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zach Apple
What better way to bow out of a sport than by clinching two golds? This is what Zach Apple did when he retired after winning both the 4x100m freestyle relay and 4x100m medley relay in Tokyo.
Off late, Apple has been working with Speedo, the brand with which he had signed just ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, to test out their latest gear and swimsuits.
Christine Sinclair
The all-time highest goalscorer in women’s international football with 190 goals, Christine Sinclair hung up her boots last year. It was only fitting that she retired after guiding Canada to the gold medal in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
In May, the global toy manufacturing company Mattel came out with a Barbie based on the prolific goalscorer herself.
Despite retiring from national team duties, Sinclair continues to ply her trade at the club football level with the National Women’s Soccer League outfit Portland Thorns.