Olympic champion turns delivery rider

With a large delivery bag on his back, Venezuelan Olympic champion fencer Ruben Limardo is out cycling around his adopted hometown in Poland, making ends meet in a strange but heart-warming tale from this time of pandemic.

The 35-year-old London Olympics foil gold medallist, who will go for glory again at the Tokyo Olympics next year, stunned his fans recently when he tweeted revealing the nature of his new job.

Earn your way

“You have to earn your way and this is a job like any other,” said Limardo as he went about a typical day of training and making food deliveries for Uber Eats.

And he is not the only one — 20 other members of Venezuela’s national fencing team live the same improbable existence. “We are all delivery riders,” said Limardo, speaking in fluent Polish.

“We get very little money from Venezuela because of the crisis there. And the pandemic has turned everything around. There are no competitions, the Tokyo Olympics were delayed for a year and the sponsors are saying they will start paying again in the new year.

“That’s why we have to make money on the road,” said Limardo, who does around 50 kilometres (31 miles) per day on his bike, earning around €100 a week.

“It works well with our training. We could even say it is an extension of the training. It allows us to live, finish our studies.

“We help each other out with training, paying rents.”