Olympian Vloggers, the best of the best

Today’s edition is a bit different. Because I’m not just covering one creator today, I’m covering four! But they all have one thing in common, they’re all Olympians!

Remember the Olympics? It’s been a month or so but you can still watch highlights from NBC on their YT channel. But you can also watch the behind the scenes.

All of these athletes have trained their whole lives for this experience and now that it’s here, they are doing more than just competing, they are story-telling. And for many, it’s their own story they’re telling and bringing you into a glimpse of their journey.

Before we jump into it, let’s start with some numbers:

Factoids:

There were 11,656 athletes in Tokyo competing in the Olympics games.

There are 7.6 billion people on the planet right now (and obviously growing).

So, that means .0001% of the population are Olympic athletes competed which means the remaining 99.9999% of the population has questions they want to know as fans:

• -What are the eating arrangements for athletes in Tokyo?

• -How are they handling COVID? How often are they tested?

• -What is this anti-sex bed stuff I’ve seen in the news, is it real?

• -What’s their training regimen? What do they do when they’re not competing?

• And many more questions.

With that innate curiosity, people can watch the main show on NBC but the behind the scenes content comes straight from the source itself, the athletes. There’s no filter, it’s straight from the athlete to you.

The Olympians

Here’s the athletes and how they vlogged their experience at the Olympic games earlier this year.

Tom Daley, British Diver

Tom Daley is a 24 year old Olympic Gold Medalist diver from Britain. He’s probably the most well-known of the group as outside of being an elite diver, he also knits in his spare time while watching the competition. He made a little knitted pouch for his medal as well as knitted his own sweater. Just a wholesome lad.

He’s been vlogging on YouTube for almost a decade and has over 1.2M subscribers on his channel that consists of daily life (vlogs), exercises, food and more!

Karla Borger/Julia Sude, German Beach Volleyball

Going into the Olympics, they were ranked 19th in the world and didn’t make it out of the prelim qualifiers. They only played 3 matches. Their vlogs are actually in German, their native language and you have to watch them on captions (if you don’t speak German of course). The best part is how you see them overcome struggles. Most of the time, you see athletes at the top of the field especially the ones who are front and center on international coverage. But before the big lights and viewers, athletes have to qualify and prepare to even come to Tokyo.

Their channel has 1.2K subscribers and is called Road To Tokyo in an almost episodic fashion with about 5 episodes on how they got to Tokyo. The training montages and sequences are the best part here as they train with a coach and show a lot of game film. I think the main takeaway here is even without subtitles, you can understand and see the emotional toll it takes athletes to get to the top of the top.

Matisse Thybulle, Australian Basketball

He started vlogging when the NBA was in the bubble showing behind the scenes of what players were eating, doing, facing while all being in Orlando together in various hotels. And for the Olympics, he wanted to do something very similar. Matisse is not only an international player for the Australian team but also plays in the NBA for the Philadelphia 76ers. Australia placed 3rd for a bronze medal in the games.

His channel has 448K subscribers and he’s been vlogging for well over a year now with some videos getting 1M+ views as many fans wanted to know what life in the bubble was all about.

Laura & Lisanne De Witte, Dutch 400m runners

And last but certainly not least are Laura & Lisanne De Witte, two sisters who run the 400m & 4 x 400m sprinters from the Netherlands. The De Witte sisters are no strangers to vlogging, they’ve been doing it for over a year and have made 87 vlogs (they’re numbered) so far! The best part is that they’re sisters and have traveled all over the world from Qatar to Tokyo to many more locations while vlogging and being together with family. It’s a special thing to qualify for Tokyo but it’s even more special when your #1 supporter is also your teammate and sister.

Their vlogs are exactly like you’d expect, they are just normal girls who live their lives in the Netherlands doing every day things and just happen to travel

How The Olympians Changed The Game

The Olympics were covered mostly by NBC but it is a truly global competition. Yes people can watch the results and the competition but they are at the mercy of NBC in terms of coverage.

For many who are not english speakers, watching a mainly English stream means that you have to read captions and then watch the actual competition when it airs. While there is nothing wrong with this consumption, it’s very different than when you’re watching TV in your country. Most probably don’t have subtitles on just to watch local news.

In comes these vloggers who are Olympic athletes and especially for the non-native English speaker vloggers like Julia Sude/Karla Borger, it’s incredible how they can connect to their own German community while still showing what it means to be an Olympic athlete.

People Want To See The Journey Not The Result

These four (technically six, but you get the point) changed the game.

There is a certain level of dedication that is necessary to be an Olympian and when you document your journey of how to get there, two things happen:

1. People watch, enjoy, and empathize with the journey

2. You (the Olympian) can remember your journey forever as it’s documented

Those two things are incredibly important for your fans, your country and most importantly you. Four years from now, some of these Olympians may be competing again and some may not but that ability to look back on their journey to Tokyo is truly precious. And arguably the best thing about being Olympians.

Today’s article is a part of Blitz Week. Where I send out a article every weekday this week. It’s a homage to my favorite version of chess, Blitz, a 5 min on the clock fast paced game.

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