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Comment by trabant00 | Hacker News Reader

She sounds like a person who would have a hard time fooling herself into taking the money. There's little if any good a professional athlete can do for regular person who wants to get/stay fit. She's good at taking health compromises to the extreme in exchange for performance. The exact opposite of what a regular person needs.

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The value of the personal trainer for the average person looking to get into slightly better-than-average shape is dispensing advice along pretty well-understood guidelines and helping them overcome their self-discipline issues, which is where speaking with the authority of an Olympian adds value even though the training regimes aren't going to be remotely similar.

Of course, she might want to stay well away from her past career for other reasons, whether it's boredom, self-consciousness, frustration or a strong desire to draw a line under it (FWIW I know an Olympic medallist who made plenty of money from endorsements and speaking engagements and could probably have had a media career but had absolutely no desire to do that or become a trainer/ambassador after his retirement, choosing to became a builder's apprentice instead, because he liked the idea of building stuff rather than because he needed the money)

I knew a world class track athlete who also left the sport completely. To her it was something that parents and coaches had forced on her so she got out as soon as she could despite all the success.

In general I agree with you but there are plenty of people who will pay big money to be trained by a gold medalist not because it makes sense but just for the title. The gold medalist then has to give the same advice every other trainer would give.

She doesn't need to be a regular trainer, she could be training people for various kinds of extreme activities.

The obvious is that she should be a coach for the Olympic cycling teams.

Unfortunately not many athletes make good coaches.

I mean, I use the term "coach" loosely... It is in US cycling's interest for this women to not be homeless.

The article says at the height of her career Twigg never made more than $50k per year with sponsorships.

So coaches I bet would only be making $20-30k per year. Barely a living wage these days, unless you live in Montana

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