--- title: An Olympic Athlete's Shaky Finances | TIME description: The road to the Rio Olympics has been a costly one for cyclist Bobby Lea. canonical: https://time.com/video/xIbMf9Yj/ og:title: An Olympic Athlete's Shaky Finances og:description: The road to the Rio Olympics has been a costly one for cyclist Bobby Lea. og:url: https://time.com/video/xIbMf9Yj/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xIbMf9Yj/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: An Olympic Athlete's Shaky Finances twitter:description: The road to the Rio Olympics has been a costly one for cyclist Bobby Lea. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xIbMf9Yj/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # An Olympic Athlete's Shaky Finances > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: An Olympic Athlete's Shaky Finances [Watch (HLS stream): An Olympic Athlete's Shaky Finances](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xIbMf9Yj.m3u8) (3:39)  _Published 2016-07-12. The road to the Rio Olympics has been a costly one for cyclist Bobby Lea._ --- Jul 27, 2023 8:24 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Rio's Olympic Legacy](/video/6tfy83Ji/) ### Rio's Olympic Legacy [10 Russian Athletes Banned From Rio Olympics in Swimming, Rowing](/video/R9HMPNIR/) ### 10 Russian Athletes Banned From Rio Olympics in Swimming, Rowing [IOC Won’t Ban Russian Athletes From Rio Olympics](/video/YsvmQ0Zf/) ### IOC Won’t Ban Russian Athletes From Rio Olympics --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Cycling it's really just ingrained in my life and how I've grown up so it's really interwoven in the whole fabric of what I do on an everyday basis. I'm Bobby Lea I'm a three time Olympic cyclist been to the Beijing and London games and now I am looking forward to One more appearance in Rio. [ MUSIC ] Well my parents have been racing for 40 years. So they put me on a bike as soon as I was old enough to sit upright and my first race was I was three or four so I was off training wheels by then. So it was a weekends of bike races instead of Baseball games and soccer games. I got through ninth grade and at that point I was moving off to the elite ranks in junior racing. I was lucky enough to get my first pro contract straight out of college. [ MUSIC ] For sure, without my parents' support, none of this is possible. My dad was in the 64 games, he understands When that drive comes from when I was in college they made the deal with me that is long as I was committing 100 %. They would help me in some way or another. [ MUSIC ] Most of us especially in the Olympic sports aren't doing it for the millions every four years we get our one chance on the mainstream stage. It's really more of a Pursue the passion and pursue the collecting zeros in the bank account. [ MUSIC ] So, here at the Valley Prefered Cycling Center and those who are not familiar with the villager and this is a bank bicycle tracks similar to a Nascar track 39, 33 meters around and that's 27 degree banking in returns. I identified track cycling for two reasons, one I was better on the track quicker On the road, but second, and maybe more importantly, by now is i realize that as far as the Olympics are concerned, the track was the way to make it. [ MUSIC ] One night at our Nationals last August I had come home late from racing and I just wanted to get to sleep. But as it happened I Had taken my last Ambien a few nights before. I realized I still had a Percocet left over and so I thought great, I'll take that. 23 hours later when I took a drug test after a race the following day there were still three nanograms of the metabolite of Percocet in my system. So, my initial suspension was 16 months but there was clearly no intention to cheat because The active effects of a Percocet are our of your body in four to six hours. And then we appealed it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and they were the ones that came back and said a 6- month ban is appropriate, not 16. [ MUSIC ] As I see it right now, I think most likely this will be my last year of full- time racing So, we'll see what the future holds now. Shelby and I bought a farm, actually. We're currently renovating a 200 year old stone farmhouse, but a big part of that is actually my younger brother, Syd, he's gonna be living with me. [ MUSIC ] We have a second barn on the property, and he'll move in there with his donkeys and his dog, and. I'll be one day maybe slightly abnormal but happy family. From my next career it's hard to say for sure I'm confident I'll be in the sport and some [ UNKNOWN ] form. But the closer I get to the end in the last I know for sure, while I wanna do and what that next career will look like. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"An Olympic Athlete's Shaky Finances","description":"The road to the Rio Olympics has been a costly one for cyclist Bobby Lea.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xIbMf9Yj/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-07-12T22:46:22.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xIbMf9Yj.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/xIbMf9Yj/","duration":"PT3M39S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/xIbMf9Yj/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```