ETN Interview: Former elite athlete discusses postponing Olympics, and USOC’s stimulus request

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - KLTV Sports Director Michael Coleman spoke to a former elite athlete about the Olympics being postponed and the U.S. Olympic Committee’s stimulus bill request during an East Texas Now interview on Friday afternoon.

Michelle Simpson Tuegel, a former elite athlete, is now an attorney who is based in the Dallas area.

In response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the International Olympics voted to postpone the 2020 Summer Olympics, which were going to be held in Tokyo, Japan to 2021 for the safety of the athletes.

Even though the U.S. Olympics Committee was one of the last entities to get behind the move to postpone the Olympics, the USOC’s members requested that Congress include $200 million to go toward America’s Olympics efforts in the massive coronavirus stimulus bill. That request was denied.

However, Tuegel said that request really connected with Olympic-caliber athletes.

“This request from the USOC was really concerning because we know that, in the past, this type of funding has gone toward salaries and bonuses for US OC executives, and hasn’t gone directly to help the athletes,” Simpson Tuegel said.

Simpson said U.S. Olympic athletes are no compensated like the athletes for other countries are.