Joey Cheek - a true hero
Joey Cheek won the 500 metres speed skating gold. With it he won $25,000 cash bonus.
What did he do with it?
As you know, there’s been some media but not a ton [about] the Darfur region of Sudan [where] there has been tens and tens of thousands of people killed. My government has labeled it a genocide, and so I will be donating money specifically to refugees in Chad where there are over 60,000 children who have been displaced from their homes….
Yes he donated the money and urged fellow Olympians to do the same. For him it is not about the money.
I have been blessed by competing in the Olympics in speedskating. If I retired yesterday I would have gotten everything in the world from speedskating and from competing in the Olympics. So for me to walk away today with a gold medal is amazing…. And so, I’ve always felt that if I ever did something big like this I wanted to be prepared to give something back.
Sportsmen are role models, yes. Sportsmen can also make a read difference. They enjoy a platform from which they can impact several lives by their examples, and setting examples. In India, Tendulkar donates to many charitable causes away from the spotlight. Schumacher made some praiseworthy donations last year. Steve Waugh has set an example in Calcutta.
Sport can indeed make differences in more ways than one.
Hat tip - Road to Torino blog.
Tags: Winter Olympics.
