With a large delivery bag on his back Venezuelan Olympic champion fencer Ruben Limardo is out cycling around his adopted hometown in Poland, making ends meet in a strange but heartwarming tale from this time of pandemic.
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The 35-year-old London Olympics foil gold medallist will go for glory again at the Tokyo Olympics next year, but stunned his fans last week when he made a tweet revealing the nature of his new job.
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"You have to earn your way and this is a job like any other," he told AFP as he went about a typical day of training and making food deliveries for Uber Eats.
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And he is not the only one - 20 other members of Venezuela's national fencing team live the same improbable existence in the town of Lodz in Poland.
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Five mornings a week, the young Venezuelan fencers gather in a former workshop on a largely abandoned industrial site in Lodz to cross swords.
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At the entrance, a pile of bikes and green cool-bags await the stroke of 1:00pm when each of the fencers finish their training, has a quick shower and then sets off for deliveries in the chill of a Polish autumn.
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"We get very little money from Venezuela because of the crisis there. And the pandemic has turned everything around."
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"There are no competitions, the Tokyo Olympics were delayed for a year and the sponsors are saying they will start paying again in the new year."
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"That's why we have to make money on the road," said Limardo, who does around 50 kilometres (31 miles) per day on his bike, earning around 100 euros a week.
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"It works well with our training. We could even say it is an extension of the training," said the married father of two.
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The pandemic has created difficulties but the school is continuing to operate, with the Venezuelan fencers taking it in turns to give lessons
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"But above all we are training to resume competition at any moment. The dream is still there," Limardo said. "Every time I make a delivery I tell myself that it will help me win the medal I want at Tokyo in 2021."
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