Clearly, this was no big budget Hollywood production. As Alec Yoder worked as a Doordash driver, he wasn’t thinking about the day he would hear his name called at the U.S. Olympic trials in late June or the day he would walk out of the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo, Japan, for the Olympic Games of 2020.
A. Yoder Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
A. Yoder was dropped off the U.S. national team at the end of February despite winning his specialty event, the pommel horse.
He remarked, “That was the best possible content for my bulletin board.” To paraphrase, “You don’t think I’m good enough to make national? And you can see me try out for the Olympic team.
It’s hard to imagine a more powerful incentive than being passed over, and I think that realisation alone will serve as all the proof I need to prove that, like, all right, you ignore me for this opportunity? Make no mistake about it, you won’t forget about me again after I’ve left this impression on you.
A. Yoder Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: Motivation
The most powerful inspiration, though, was a financial disaster for him.
“I went through approximately a year and a half of not producing any money at all,” A. Yoder said. I completely emptied out my emergency fund.
To prevent himself from depleting his resources entirely, he drove for Doordash for a while. “But monetarily, it was incredibly challenging,” he said. Feeling useless isn’t the right phrase, but that’s how I felt.
I realised that, despite appearances, I am not an adult. I’ve got a lot of expenses to pay. I have rent that needs to be paid. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life because I have to do all this stuff and don’t even break even. But I knew—not just intellectually, but physically—that I was doing this for some greater purpose.
A. Yoder moved from being an afterthought to an Olympic participant in late June after performing two successful pommel horse routines at the U.S. trials.
Ultimately, he remarked, “it is what it is and was what it was,” but adding that he believes the lack of a national team on an Olympic squad is a wonderful incentive. “It has unquestionably helped me reach this point in my life.”
The Olympic medal for men in pommel horse is at stake in the finals this Sunday (1 August).
A. Yoder was only committed to performing one routine in the qualifying round of the Olympics, on the pommel horse. He came through and qualified for the final round of the pommel horse competition in fourth position, ahead of defending Olympic champion Max Whitlock and tied with two other strong competitors.
His Olympic hopes, and perhaps his entire season, rest in the roughly 70 seconds it takes him to complete one full revolution of the pommel horse while supporting his entire body weight with one hand.
But he Remains Calm Under Fire.
“I put in the work every day in the gym to make sure that when situations like that arise, that I’m ready to go,” said A. Yoder. For some, that kind of stress is unbearable, but for others, it’s the spark that ignites a hitherto unrealized capacity for intense concentration and unyielding resolve, the conviction that “no matter what,” they can hold their balance on the pommel for an entire seven minutes.
Last Words
So, in that situation, it might be quite terrifying. But if you put in the effort, you’ll be ready to launch. Thanks for reading our article A. Yoder Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
