Catching Up With Apolo Anton Ohno

[Editor’s note: This article is from The Spun’s “Then and Now” magazine, featuring interviews with more than 50 sports stars of yesteryear. Order your copy online today, or pick one up at retail racks and newsstands nationwide.]

More than 20 years have passed since Apolo Anton Ohno sped into America’s living rooms, displaying talent and oozing swagger with his soul patch. Between 2002, when Ohno captured the nation’s attention at the Salt Lake City Games, and his last Olympics in 2010, he became the most decorated American Winter Olympian in history with eight medals.

But Ohno’s path after the Olympics wasn’t easy. Having given so much of his life to speedskating — with 3:30 a.m. wakeup calls for practice, and constant travel and competitions that left little time for anything else, Ohno struggled with the idea that his only purpose was to thrive and succeed in sport.

“There really is a kind of riveting embrace of this loss of identity that occurs, which I believe is highly correlated with the longer an athlete stays in a sport, the more successful that they are at that sport — that this is their purpose,” he said.

Ohno has learned there is life after speedskating. Today, the 43-year-old is happy as he pursues a multipronged and newfound purpose. He spends time investing in the health and wellness space, serving as an adviser to executives on their path to success and as a motivational speaker to professional, educational and cultural communities, helping “people be and live their best, perform their best and feel their best.”

“I couldn’t have envisioned a life more filled with these incredible experiences that have occurred, and also the immense challenges of transitioning beyond the world of sport,” Ohno said.