Olympic gymnast racks up $5,000 phone bill playing 'Pokemon Go'

Japanese Olympic gymnast Kohei Uchimura could really use some gold right now -- not necessarily a gold medal, but just some gold coins to pay off his steep phone bill.

And he supposedly has "Pokemon Go" to blame.

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While in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympics, Uchimura reportedly racked up a nearly $5,000 phone bill while playing the game, thanks to data overages.

Uchimura, a six-time world champion, reportedly downloaded the augmented reality game when he flew to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for training, and he instantly got hooked.

But the odd and possibly amazing part of this story is that Rio de Janeiro doesn't even have "Pokemon Go" right now.

Olympians have already griped that they're stuck in Rio with no PokeStops to visit or Pokemon to catch.

Despite pleas from Rio's mayor, Niantic Inc., the company that created "Pokemon Go," has yet to set a release date for the app in Brazil. So we're still not totally sure how Uchimura got on.

It wasn't all bad news for Uchimura, though. His phone company graciously agreed to reduce his bill to a $30-a-day unlimited plan. Whew.

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Matt Moreno

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