After leaving Paris: What are the Olympic athletes doing now?

For athletes, who have just finished competing in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, it probably feels like the end of a long work year or an especially arduous sports season. No matter what achievements they had in France, their long and hard training paid off and now it's time to enjoy a period of downtime before getting back to training again.

But will the hiatus go as they expect? Maybe not, as many of them have become overnight superstars that need to pay attention to their privacy now.

Pan Zhanle, the men's 100-meter swimming freestyle winner and world record holder, admitted having trouble dealing with his fame. In an interview with China Central Television, he confessed that he now has about five interviews a day, and his life has changed quite drastically.

"It's even difficult for me to go out alone," Pan pointed out. "I hope to keep a low profile and enjoy a quiet life. I would rather my performance wasn't so outstanding this time, and I only hope to continue focusing on training."

The swimmer said that he has disbanded his only fan group so that he could focus more on himself.

Some athletes are not as burdened as Pan though. People have encountered fellow swimmer Wang Shun, the bronze winner in the men's 200 individual medley, at Universal Beijing Resort with his teammate Sun Jiajun. The two had fun at Kung Fu Panda Land and when they left, they bought many souvenirs, such as plushies of Minions.

Table tennis superstar Sun Yingsha and badminton women's doubles gold winner Chen Qingchen were also spotted at the resort. It seems that theme parks work not only on children but also athletes that need to forget competitions for a while.

On the other side of the ocean, athletes from other countries are also enjoying their vacation.

After gaining three golds and one silver medal in Paris, American gymnast Simone Biles returned home to Texas and the first thing she did was to satisfy her big appetite.

The restaurant Stick Talk Cajun-Hibachi was her first stop and she shared on social media platform Threads that the place "never misses".

The restaurant owner practically melted down seeing her and her husband, National Football League player Jonathan Owens.

"We were really happy to see Simone and Jonathan chose to stop at Stick Talk once they were back in Texas," Junior Martin, co-founder of ALIFE Hospitality, which operates Stick Talk, told Houston local media. "Our whole team was excited to see the post, texts started to come in and it of course makes us all happy to know they love our food."

Paris might have been just another stop for Biles, but it was the last stop of Tom Daley's diving career. The Briton, who won five medals in his 16-year Olympic journey and went viral at the Paris Games for his sideline knitting, is retiring.

Daley, 30, began his Olympic career at Beijing 2008. He has since won three bronze medals, one gold and finally a silver in the men's 10-meter synchronized platform event in Paris.

"It was emotional at the end, up there on the platform, knowing it was going to be my last competitive dive," Daley told Vogue in an interview. "But I have to make the decision at some point, and it feels like the right time. It's the right time to call it a day."

It seems that Daley caught more attention in the stands than on the diving board. The picture of him knitting a red and blue "Paris 24" sweater ruled the Internet during the event.

He once explained his hobby after Tokyo 2020 that "it (knitting and crocheting) just turned into my mindfulness, my meditation, my calm and my way to escape the stresses of everyday life and, in particular, going to an Olympics."

Now leaving the diving board behind, he may have more time to deal with yarns, patterns and palettes.

While most athletes, whether Olympic-bound in the future or otherwise, are currently enjoying their lives, American high jumper Shelby McEwen is still busy defending his decision to refuse to share a gold medal in Paris.

In the men's high jump final, both McEwen and New Zealand's Hamish Kerr cleared 2.36 meters, which sparked a jump-off between the two for the title.

The result: he was left with silver.

Criticism flooded the Internet as the United States was neck and neck with China in the gold tally, and his shared gold medal would have allowed the Americans to take the lead.

Yet McEwen seems to have no regrets, saying that it was a mutual decision rather than his own.

"If it was meant to be it would've been," he told reporters at a press conference after the event.

"Shout out to Hamish for coming up to me, accepting a jump-off and I accepted it and I was all for it," the American said in another interview.

"At the end of the day, like he said it's a sport. I mean I represent my country, just like he's representing his. I'm representing my family just like he's representing his. At the end of the day we all want to be champions and the only respectful thing to do is walk away with one champion."