Here’s What 17 Olympic And Paralympic Athletes Do As Their Day Jobs

He told High Performing Sport New Zealand, “An apprenticeship involves night classes, block courses, and on the tools work, and it would have been impossible for me to become qualified without the financial support [of the Prime Minister’s Scholarship] and a great deal of flexibility from my bosses over the years. Because of training and competition commitments, I could only work two to three days a week, which is why the apprenticeship took me six years to complete. I had to be straight up with my employers and let them know that my sporting goal was to make the Tokyo Olympics but that I also wanted to complete my apprenticeship.”

He also said that he was committed to earning his electrician qualification because of his parents. He said, “They strongly believed I needed something other than sport under my belt because I was not going to be an athlete all my life.”