WE HAVE TO PROVIDE AS MANY TOOLS AVAILABLE FOR ATHLETES TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION AS POSSIBLE.
YURI MAIER
As part of United World Wrestling’s (UWW) training camp in Mexico, the international federation and Athlete365 Career+, delivered with the Adecco Group, conducted an outreach workshop over two days for all attendees. All 50 participants were aged either 16 or 17 and represented 12 countries in total.
At the end of June, United World Wrestling organised a training camp for their young, budding wrestlers. This training camp was not only focused on honing the sporting skills of the athletes, but also on teaching them life skills via an informative workshop.
All participants were teenagers, and the focus was to remind them about the importance of continuing to focus on self-knowledge, education and life skills development alongside their passion of wrestling in order to ensure successful future careers. The Athlete365 Career+ session was delivered by Yuri Maier (ARG), of UWW, and Ricardo del Real OLY (MEX).
As Yuri told Athlete365, being aware of the importance of education and your future is vital. “The first step is to create awareness. In order to face an issue, first you need to know that it exists and then we have to provide as many tools available for athletes to have a successful transition as possible.”
Both Yuri and Ricardo are former elite athletes who have since transitioned into new careers. In 2018, they were certified as Athlete365 Career+ Lead Educators. Yuri works as a Sports and Development Officer with the UWW, while Ricardo works as a chiropractor.
AFTER RETIRING FROM COMPETING, YOU SHOULD HAVE ANOTHER CAREER, ESPECIALLY AS ATHLETE’S PROFESSIONAL LIVES DO NO LAST FOREVER.
JULIA SOUZA DE OLIVEIRA
“Without the right preparation, getting to where I am now in my career would not have been possible. This is why I think Athlete365 Career+ is so important. In most cases it is necessary to talk directly to athletes for them to be aware of this,” added Yuri.
The feedback from the young athletes was also overwhelmingly positive. 17-year-old Julia Souza de Oliveira from Brazil said, “I think it is an important matter: after retiring from competing, you should have another career, especially as athletes’ professional lives do not last forever. It is really beneficial to bring this up, so that they will have more than one career option in the future.”
“It made me realise that we should have a balance between sport and studies to become a holistic person in the future and to move forward with our career,” added 17-year-old Hernán David Almendra from Argentina.
