Helping fellow Olympians secure their financial future

investmentnews.com:

For many Olympians, winning gold is the dream come true, but a secure financial future soon becomes the dream once the Star-Spangled Banner is played and the tears are dry.

Now the 2024 Olympic games have drawn to a close, and with many athletes set to begin another grueling Olympic cycle ahead of Los Angeles 2028, Lauryn Williams, founder of RIA Worth Winning, will be helping several of them – specifically Team USA athletes – plan for their future.

She knows the life of an Olympian all too well. After all, she was the first American women to win a medal in both the summer and winter games. Having won silver in the 100 meters in Athens in 2004, she bagged gold in the 4x100m relay at London 2012 before winning silver in the two-woman bobsleigh in Sochi in 2014.

“In Olympic sports, and particularly track and field, the main way you earn money is to have been sponsored by a shoe company,” Williams explained. “The dream as a pro track and field athlete is to get a sponsor that will allow you to train full time versus having to go to work and also train. The sponsorships are the main way that we earn a living as Olympic athletes.”

The first thing Williams realized when she went pro was that she did not have enough knowledge to know what to do with her earned money, despite being a finance major before becoming an full-time athlete.

“I didn’t want to make a bad decision,” she said. “What do you do when you don’t want to make a bad decision? You ask somebody for help.”

Unfortunately, her first encounter with a financial planner was not ideal – they sold her a million dollars of life insurance and were too investment focused.

“At 20, what I needed was financial literacy,” she said. “I didn’t know a lot about making a budget. I