Top Olympic Gymnast Racks Up $5,000 Bill Playing ‘Pokemon Go’

Gold medalist Kohei Uchimura wasn’t informed that “Pokemon Go” isn’t available in Brazil yet

pokemon go rio olympics

If there were any Olympians hoping to go out looking for Arboks in Rio de Janeiro in between events, they should probably take note of the recent misadventures of Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura, who racked up a massive data roaming bill while playing “Pokemon Go.”

Uchimura is the defending Olympic gold medalist in the men’s all-around and a record six-time world champion. He arrived in Brazil last week for training camp, and thought it might be fun to download “Pokemon Go” and see what he could find during his Olympic trip. Unfortunately, he realized too late that Niantic hadn’t yet expanded “Pokemon Go” to South America.

As he revealed Tuesday to Kyodo News, he discovered that his use of roaming data had left him with a phone bill of 500,000 yen, which in U.S. dollars is just under $5,000. Fortunately for Uchimura, he was able to negotiate with the phone company and get them to agree to only charge him a flat rate of $30 per day.

Other Olympians have posted pictures of the empty maps they found when they turned on the game in Rio.

The game is so popular that last month, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes posted a plea to Niantic on Facebook for the developers to bring “Pokemon Go” to Brazil in time for the Olympics. It seems that Paes’ requests have been answered, as Niantic revealed on Twitter that they are going to expand the game to Brazil just in time for the events to start. Still, if Uchimura’s experience is any indication, athletes might still want to keep an eye on their data usage.

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