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Time & Perspective Quote by Alberto Juantorena

"We want to make sure our athletes have a future once their athletics careers are over"

About this Quote

There’s a quiet rebuke embedded in Juantorena’s line: the world loves athletes most when they’re easiest to consume, and forgets them the second the body stops producing spectacle. Coming from an athlete, not a minister or a sponsor, the sentence lands like a practical demand rather than a feel-good slogan. It’s not “support athletes” in the abstract; it’s a warning about what happens when sport treats people as short-term assets.

The intent is protective and institutional. “We want” signals a collective - a federation, a union impulse, a leadership stance - pushing against the old model where an athlete’s value is measured in medals and marketability. “Make sure” is doing heavy lifting: it implies that, left to the system, the future won’t be secured. That’s the subtext of structural neglect: injuries, burnout, precarious finances, limited education pathways, and the sudden identity collapse many athletes face when the routine and recognition disappear.

The phrasing also smuggles in a critique of how countries and organizations harvest national pride. Athletes are asked to perform patriotism with their bodies; the least a society can do is offer career training, healthcare, and credible transitions afterward. Juantorena - famous for achievements that made him useful to institutions - is essentially insisting on reciprocity. The cultural moment here is bigger than sport: it mirrors a broader labor conversation about what happens when a job defines you, then discards you. Athletes are just the clearest, most televised case.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Juantorena, Alberto. (2026, January 17). We want to make sure our athletes have a future once their athletics careers are over. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-want-to-make-sure-our-athletes-have-a-future-39520/

Chicago Style
Juantorena, Alberto. "We want to make sure our athletes have a future once their athletics careers are over." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-want-to-make-sure-our-athletes-have-a-future-39520/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We want to make sure our athletes have a future once their athletics careers are over." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-want-to-make-sure-our-athletes-have-a-future-39520/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Alberto Add to List
Ensure Athletes Future After Athletics Careers: Juantorena
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About the Author

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Alberto Juantorena (born December 3, 1950) is a Athlete from Cuba.

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