Back to the Olympics Newsfeed

With Olympics on hold, US athletes embrace being 'really bad' at quarantine hobbies

Rai Benjamin is one of the fastest men in the world, a 400-meter specialist who is favored to win one medal – if not two – at the Tokyo Olympics next summer.

He's also fascinated by the guitar. So as the coronavirus pandemic stretched on, and he found himself losing interest in other hobbies like yoga and video games, he started thinking: Why not try something completely new? Why not learn how to play the guitar?

"It's like, why not add another skill to my list of skills?" he said.

Benjamin is not alone. With the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics postponed to 2021, and international competitions on hold, some of the world's top athletes are weathering the pandemic with the help of new hobbies, or the pursuit of new skills.