By Abinaya Balaji
Over the past few years, conversations surrounding mental health have taken a spotlight in today’s world, as people come to realize that your mental health is just as important as your physical health, if not more. Mental health is what affects your productivity, performance and the quality of that performance. When it comes to the world’s greatest athletes, it seems like that would be common knowledge—unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
This past summer Simone Biles, the one of the greatest gymnasts in Olympic history, winning over 25 medals, chose to withdraw from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to the “twisties”: a mental block gymnasts face when they lose spatial awareness when doing aerial flips. As a result, the topic of mental health has once again popped up within the Olympic community. Simone Biles isn’t alone on this, joining the list of athletes who have been very vocal or have withdrawn due to mental health concerns.
Micheal Phelps, a now retired Olympic swimmer for the United States winning over 23 medals and easily havinge won the most gold medals in Olympic history, has been very vocal about his mental health, stating he had contemplated suicide when diagnosed with depression after the 2012 Olympics. Biles also joins tennis player Naomi Osaka, who pulled out of the French Open and had an early exit from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Osaka has been particularly scrutinized for this decision, with many saying that she was faking it. In her piece on Time Magazine, Osaka stated that “in any other line of work, you would be forgiven for taking a personal day here and there, so long as it’s not habitual”. In the study The Mental Health of Elite Athletes: A Narrative Systematic Review by Simon M. Rice et al, they found that elite athletes are more likely to suffer from mental health issues ranging from anxiety and burnout to eating disorders and depression, in comparison to the average person. The factors causing this can vary from selection pressure, media attention or in the case of Micheal Phelps and many others, a downward spiral after the Olympics leading to suicidal thoughts and deep-seated depression.
The pressure put on athletes is heavier than most know. Many of us see these athletes when we tune in to watch them every four years, but we don’t see the hours of training they put in. Australian Swimmer, Jack McLoughlin talks about training hours after hours, but not having the guarantee of success—you can train just as much as you want, but it doesn’t guarantee the gold medal. McLoughlin says that the pressure, alongside the stress of training during the pandemic and trying to pursue an engineering degree, was almost enough for him to quit the sport entirely.
Currently, the Olympics Committee has stated that their goal to better care for the mental health of athletes is to create a plan similar to that of the process for a concussion: the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT). The questionnaire outlines what needs to be addressed, however its main goal is to increase recognition and reduce the stigma around mental health. Utilizing the SCAT, they believe they can create a series of questions to ask the athlete about their mental health. The committee has outlined that many coaches and professionals in Olympics sports know next to nothing about how to deal with the mental health of the athlete; they hope that through reducing stigma and providing a way to identify athletes' struggles will allow for better performance and better athletes. And although this is a good step forward there are still a lot of changes that need to be made.
In the words of Jenny Risveds, the youngest female cross country mountain biker champion, after she finished 14th in Tokyo: “I’m just so f—ing happy that it’s over….I hope that I will be left alone now.” Let's hope that caring for mental health becomes a part of training within the Olympics and that athletes are given the ability to take care of themselves without backlash.
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