NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - The Drink with Kate Snow: Apolo Ohno

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

Apolo Ohno is known as the most decorated American Winter Olympian in history. But in his first Olympic trials, he finished dead last. He traces his “hard pivot” in life, when he left the world of short track speed skating and had to figure out a new career path.

Hey everyone, this is Kate Snow, and I'm so happy to share with you a great conversation I had with Apollo Ono. He is the most decorated American winter Olympian of all time. What I find fascinating about his story is that even though we all know him as this star athlete, the speed skater, the gold medalist, he actually finished dead last in his first Olympic trials. It goes to show you that a failure does not always hold you back from a victory later. That is a major lesson that I've learned from all the interviews I've done as part of this series. You can hear more stories of success from the top artists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries at www.nbcnews.com slash the drink. I was driven heavily by a real deep sense of fear of failure throughout my entire career.

And there was times when I was able to conquer it, and there was times when it got the best of me. Apollo Ono, what's your drink? My drink? I'm in honor of the upcoming 2021 Tokyo Olympics. I'm having, well, it was an iced matcha, but it's somewhat melted. Nice. Like a ceremonial green tea matcha that I whipped it up and I poured it over ice. I went with a matcha latte. Can you see that? Oh, beautiful. Look at that. Yours looks much better than mine. Well, yeah. whipped it up and I poured it over ice. I went with a matcha latte. Can you see that?

Oh, beautiful. It's much better than mine. Well, yeah. Somebody looks like muddy water, sewage water. You are the most winning medalist at the Olympics in the winter Olympics ever, right? Eight medals. How did you get there? I grew up in Seattle. My father raised me, Singaporean household. I was very active as a kid, had played multiple traditional American, you know, stick and ball sports, basketball, baseball, football. I was a swimmer at a very young age. And I had seen this sport in 1992. And then again again in 1994, as we back then would watch this on our television as a family, my father and I, and I fell in love with the sport. I wanted to try it right away. I immediately, within six and a half months of being in an organized training center, which was actually held in Lake Placid, New York, I had skyrocketed to being ranked the number one athlete in the US at the age of 14. How did you even know you wanted to be a speed skater? You're watching the Olympics with your dad and you say, that's it. That's what I'm going to do. Everything as a young boy that I saw would resemble something that I thought was cool

of that of a superhero. So I was in my head, those guys look like they're superheroes racing around samurai swords on their feet around an ice rink. It looked impossible. The only thing that was missing was the cape. The outfits were basically the same, right? Like skin tight outfits. And I was like, that looks really cool. Like I want to try that. Your dad was a single dad, right? Raising you alone, immigrated from Japan. Correct. How did that shape how you got into the sport and what you became? Because he's Japanese, even though he's been in this country longer than he's been in Japan,

the way that his brain works is still very Japanese. So he's got this unique blend of like American teaching as a father with this like ancient traditional commitment to, if you do something, you truly dedicate your life towards that. And he would wake me up at like three 34 in the morning and we would find empty school parking lots. And he would have me roller skate while the lights were on. And he strapped the minor's light to my helmet because that's what he thought it was going to take for me to become a better athlete. I was 12 years old. Wow. So when I thought like trauma, right? Like some of that goes into that realm. So the hard work and the discipline and the dedication and the sacrifice

was ingrained at the U.S. when I was 14, the following season, which was the Olympic trials in 1997, 1998, I finished dead last at those Olympic trials. People don't know that. I actually did not make the first Olympic team that I tried out for, which was the 1998 Nagano Olympic team, which was crushing on myself, my father, because my grandmother and my grandfather were living in Nagano at the time where the Olympics were being held. My father had gone away against their wishes to the United States to start his life. And now he was coming

full circle, theoretically, if I had made that team and I would compete and he could say like, see, I knew what I was doing, but I didn't. And that was another kind of shift moment in my life. Why didn't you give up right then? Why didn't you just say, you know what, this isn't going to work out, forget it. It was a combination of an epiphany slash realization where I needed to take the chance. I didn't know what the outcome was going to be. I didn't know that I was going to go on and win medals. I didn't know that I could make the next Olympic team four years later of dedication and sacrifice and hard The toll that it takes to get to the Olympics each time. I mean, I've talked to speed skaters, other speed skaters.

It's not a great paying job. You're not making any money in between Olympics. Those are hard years, I imagine. Unless you're in one of the skiing sports or snowboarding, most of the other sports, there's little to no money. I mean, I literally mean there is little to no money. And if you win, and if you're not a celebrated by NBC or one of the big people who's really shining the light, right?

They've got the power to make you a superstar. I had that. I was lucky enough to get that. But there's many others who have meddled who most Americans don't know who those names are. That's just the reality of the society that we live in. But the path to get there is very, very challenging. On average, I would say between $16,000 and $32,000 in debt every single year per athlete to pursue your dream. And as an athlete who's developed this identity around Olympic athlete, it's very hard to visually see yourself doing anything else except for that path. You call the moment that you leave the sport, the great divorce. I call it the great divorce.

And I know you're speaking about this now, you're writing about it. You've got a new book that you're working on. The title of the book is called Hard Pivot. Which is a term in speed skating. Yeah, it's a term in speed skating. So in short track speed skating, as you're kind of hurtling down the straightaway at 30, 40 miles an hour, you take one crossover and land onto your right foot. And that right foot then takes you and goes in the complete opposite direction. And that's called a hard pivot. And the metaphor there is we will have multiple hard pivots in our life, whether you are in sport or you have never touched sport in any capacity. And oftentimes you try to make that hard pivot and you exit gracefully with so much speed that you don't slow down and you're going in the other direction, completely different from the career

path that you had previously. But most often you fall and you crash. And at that moment, we have to talk about, okay, what is the next steps? Do you stay down? How do you reinvent? How do you transform? What are the next steps? What else are you good at? And I just speak from experience of going through that, seeing all of my peers, some having success and some not, and then the dichotomy of both stories.

What did your hard pivot look like? So I've had hard pivots in my career during sport. And then I had what I would concede to be the real hard pivot is when I retired. I was driven heavily by a real deep sense of fear of failure throughout my entire career. And there was times when I was able to conquer it and there was times when it got the best of me. So I went back to business school and began this process of just deep hunger for knowledge to realize that I need to pour out the cup that I have in order for me to truly absorb the information that's out there. And I need to pour out the cup that I have in order for me to truly absorb the information that's out there. And I need to start from scratch because I'm not the number one

athlete in the world anymore. I was in that realm and as a title, but that's just one facet of my personality. I'm a very complex human like we all are. And I've got these different interests and skill sets that have never been shown yet. Can I do some rapid fire questions? Rapid fire. All right. You ready? Yeah. Weirdest thing about you? Oh, weirdest thing about me. I like my bed extremely cold to sleep in. Abnormal. When I used to live in Colorado Springs, I used to leave the window open. I could see my breath. It was very, yeah. My fiance is like, you are completely insane. Best advice you ever got. From my father. And that's the focus of the process over prize.

Where do you keep your medals? They're right behind me. Oh yeah. Oh, I see them now. Yeah. Do you still ice skate? Do you still get on the ice? The last time I ice skated was in Vienna in 2018. So no, I don't. Very, very seldomly. Okay. Oh my gosh. It has been such a pleasure to talk with you. It's inspiring. I'm sure people say that all the time to you, but I really, I feel like we've all been through what you're

describing. We've all had to pivot, myself included, you know, and it's just a great reminder that you can. You can. You can and, uh, the choice is yours. Yeah.