You guys got me in the morning so I’m like fresh and awake.
Hi, how are you going?
Hello!
Tudo bem!
There we go...
We’re going to get really into it, so let’s do it, I guess.
Tokyo!
It’s really insane, what we do as athletes,
you have four-year plans, for one singular day
that you compete at the Olympic Games.
I was going for my 4th gold,
chasing one more dream
This is the year that could
make those dreams become a reality
And I was like, "Is this real?"
Nothing had ever shut down the world.
It was agreed that the Tokyo Olympics
and Paralympics would be held by the Summer of 2021
at the latest.
Woah. This puts into perspective how big this is.
It was just like...
an insane, complete refresh
of just like, your whole life.
Hope in this time can be really hard to find.
It was really scary, and especially on social media,
I remember trying to stay off it.
You can’t really do much to help that situation.
It can definitely get you down and really hit you quite hard.
In the face of somebody like, getting married, or, you know,
trying to have IVF treatment,
or like, one of my close family friend’s dad was
on the list to get cancer treatment, which was postponed.
It’s like “Oh, I can’t wrestle today?" Like...
It’s so incomparable to those big life milestones.
For me personally, my daughter was born
on December 29 in Australia.
And to have a newborn in this environment,
that was all quite stressful.
People know somebody who’s at high risk.
My grandmother, who is in
a memory care home, and has dementia...
You know, from afar, you can’t go up and hold them,
and make them feel safe.
I miss physical contact with people a lot.
A handshake, a hug.
Human beings, to my understanding,
were not created to live in isolation.
Here it comes. Work from home, wrestling edition.
Everyone else is going through this as well,
and seeing on Instagram
all the other athletes from around the world
and all the different ways that they’re adapting...
You kind of get more motivated and more excited.
I have been locked down for almost 10 to 12 weeks now,
and I would give anything...
My daughter is giving a little bomb right here.
You can say hi. We love you.
Having goals to achieve...
I think sometimes the busy-ness of that
distracts you from,
for me, what really matters,
and that’s what’s inside these walls at my home.
It has helped me to value what it is that I do have,
so much more.
I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time
gazing at the moon, it’s as if I’d never seen it before!
I do think that I have become a lot stronger mentally
as a result of the current situation.
It’s not about the triumph, it’s about the struggle,
and a lot of us have struggled, and being able to
be at the Olympics, is a triumph in itself.
Once we’re there, and I dream about it a lot,
we need to learn a lesson from it,
Alone we are nothing.
From here, surely we’re able to be kinder to people...
It’s those things that you see,
like hugging, and being in crowds,
and handshakes, and being on the podium next to each other.
Just showing that respect for our teammates,
knowing how much we all went through.
It’s not about Olympic medals,
it’s about the culmination of a dream.
This moment that the world comes together,
it’s a symbol of the strength and resiliency
that we have together as a human race.