Alica Schmidt’s Olympic Gold at Influencering!

There are Olympic medals but there are not influencer medals.

German track star Alica Schmidt may not have brought home the hardware from Paris, but she absolutely deserves to be in the conversation for an Olympic gold in the increasingly competitive sport of Influencering.

If you have seen the news around the US Open, there are two schools of thought, those who hate influencers and their self involved and disgusting behavior and those who like having them market and promote things they are doing.

The truth is that not all influencing is the same, there are tiers to these things and Alica does it in a way that is top notch.

Sure, she's been training for the Olympics for years, but while she was doing that training, she was also doing influencer training. Navigating the world of content creation, community and audience building and monetization.

Schmidt first became an internet phenomenon in 2017, when she was dubbed her the “world’s sexiest athlete.” The label wasn't exactly an Olympic-sanctioned title, but it certainly got the internet's attention and Schmidt's follower count took off.

What makes the story more interesting is that Schmidt wasn't simply an Instagram personality who happened to own a pair of running shoes.

She's an actual elite 400-meter runner who put in the miles, made the German national team and kept chasing an Olympic dream while simultaneously becoming one of the world's biggest athlete influencers.

That's a hell of a training schedule.

After being part of Germany's Olympic squad in Tokyo without competing, Schmidt finally got her Olympic moment in Paris in 2024, running for Germany in the mixed 4x400-meter relay and also competing in the women's 4x400. Neither relay advanced to the final, so there was no Olympic medal waiting at the finish line.

But here's where we give credit where credit is due:

She made it.

Getting to the Olympics is the athletic equivalent of making it to the Super Bowl, except you've spent years running around a track instead of getting tackled by enormous men.

She even has a tattoo of the Olympic rings to forever remember the feat.

Schmidt's road to Paris involved years of training, competition and trying to improve while simultaneously building a gigantic audience online.

And that brings us to her other event:

Influencering.

If there were medals for turning athletic credibility, camera-ready charisma and millions of followers into serious brand appeal, Schmidt wouldn't just qualify, she'd be on the podium giving those champagne showers.

She's worked with major fashion and sports brands, including BOSS, where she became a global ambassador and even collaborated on her own BOSS x Alica Schmidt collection.

She works with Porsche.

She basically has every German brand in her back pocket.

Exhibit A: Schmidt shooting a cosmetic campaign for a German cosmetic campaign:

We're not going to let the modeling team have all the fun, here's the important reminder:

This woman can actually run.

That's the Schmidt formula in a nutshell: athlete first, influencer second, ridiculously effective brand ambassador whenever somebody points a camera at her.

So no, Alica Schmidt didn't leave Paris with an Olympic medal.

She left with something arguably more 2026:

A massive global audience, a growing commercial career, an Olympic appearance on the résumé and enough internet influence to make an entire marketing department start doing laps.

Gold medal?

Maybe not on the track.

But in Influencering?

Alica Schmidt is going for gold — and she's already on the podium.

Here she is proving that she's athletic.