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Medaling in the Olympic games is an incredible honor and unbeatable triumph that few will ever experience, but what happens when the athletes come home and face hardships they never could have imagined?
On the July 23 episode of the Amy & T.J. podcast, hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes spoke to Briana Scurry, two-time Olympic gold medalist and former goalkeeper for the United States national women's soccer team who was the starting goalie for the team at the World Cup in 1995, 1999 and 2003 as well as the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and 2004 Summer Olympics.
During the chat, Scurry shared how following the end of her professional career after sustaining a "traumatic" injury and during one of the "darkest times of her life" she ended up pawning her two gold medals and how she was eventually able to get them back.
"At the verge of pawning that I actually wanted to turn around and not do it, but I was like, I got to, I have to, I don't have stability," she recalled, admitting that she "hated" to do it. "I'm in a crater, and I'm sinking and I'm sinking, and then this is the only way I saw financially that I could get some stability."
She continued, "After I took the medal to the shop in downtown New York, I got back in my car and I cried for like an hour. I mean, the tears just rolling off my face. And I was in such a bad place."
Because she only pawned them and didn't sell, Scurry said she still "had ownership" and was able to get them back about eight months later thanks to her now-wife.
"I didn't tell anybody that I did this. She's the only one I told. And literally, in the next 72 hors, I had them back," she said. "She's like, 'Where are they? Let's go right now?' She was not messing around."
Elsewhere in the interview, Scurry shared how her years of playing football led her to soccer, how she knew at 8 years old that she wanted to be an Olympian and how goalkeeping is a high-pressure, low-reward position that she absolutely enjoyed as a "control freak," among other stories.
Robach and Holmes are also sharing all the "Tea from Paris" in a series of episodes breaking down the biggest news from each day of the 2024 Paris Olympics, from Celine Dion making her triumphant return to performing during the opening ceremony and gymnast Simone Biles toughing through an injury to an Olympian's incredible apology to his wife for losing his wedding ring and dirty river water postponing an event.
Follow along on their Olympics coverage and catch up on older episodes of the Amy & T.J. podcast at iHeartRadio.com.