It’s become a sports cliché that when an athlete or a team wins a championship, the default response to “What’s next?” is “I’m going to Disney World!” But that’s old news for Olympic medalists. Michael Phelps did that way back when he had only eight gold medals, after Beijing in 2008.
For the 2016 Olympic medalists, finding out what’s next takes many forms. Some athletes are thrust into the spotlight as newly minted celebrities, making the rounds of talk shows and other public appearances, walking red carpets and appearing in commercials or on cereal boxes or, in the gymnast Aly Raisman’s case, on a Smuckers jelly jar.