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After the Olympics, what does tomorrow bring for the mental health of athletes

2024-08-11 19:39:00, Shëndeti CNA

The Olympic Games are the pinnacle of an athlete's career. What does tomorrow bring? Experts and athletes talk about post-race mental health challenges.

Preparing for the Olympics is difficult. Winning a gold medal, the joys and admiration of reaching the goal is a unique experience, perhaps the highest moment in an athlete's career. What they usually don't prepare for, after all it's not part of the training, is what follows the end of the Games, when the road from zero to the top changes course, when the celebrations die down and the lights go out.

The next day is often a mental ordeal from which not everyone emerges unscathed. Research into the transition from Olympic glory to days of personal erevus brings to light evidence of the struggles athletes face, from depression, anxiety and eating disorders to suicidal ideation and ultimately suicide, as in the case of Olympian Jeret Peterson in in 2011, a year after his silver medal at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Multi-Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps has spoken about the difficult times and great depression he experienced every time after the Olympic Games. Depression, former Olympic rower Christine Roper has said, can occur regardless of an athlete's performance.

Loss of meaning

Studies have found that elite athletes often face a variety of short- and long-term mental health problems, such as burnout, eating disorders, anxiety and depression. The situation is complicated by factors such as hyper-focus on sport and performance, lack of other interests and uncertainty about the future.

Research from the University of Toronto found that 41.4% of Canada's national team athletes training for the 2020 Olympics reported depression, anxiety, an eating disorder or a combination of such conditions when interviewed in 2019.

Another study, of athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2018 and 2019, showed that one in four (24%) felt mental health distress after the event. Mental problems are more often found in athletes who intend to retire after competition, usually in response to a perceived loss of purpose and identity.

The demands are high. Athletes who descend on the Olympic Games are required to bear the inevitable weight of participation, they are the center of global attention, financial investment and constant media coverage, often for matters of their personal lives, under the stress of representing their country and winning medals; in front of a global audience. "All this hype and tension about being an Olympian is quickly disintegrating," comments Karen Cogan, chief sports psychologist at the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), explaining that the end of the games will mark the beginning of a period of existential angst: " Do I want to keep fighting? Should I change my career path?"

The end of stigma and mental fortification

Mental health professionals and researchers identify a deficit in psychological support for athletes in the post-Games period, which contributes to later difficulties. But it seems that coaches and support staff will not escape the post-Olympic depression, as recent research data has shown.

For Jamie Shapiro, a professor of sport and performance psychology at the University of Denver in Colorado, preparing for life after the Games should be done long before the sporting event takes place to minimize the risk of depression.

"There are athletes who say, 'I don't want to think about it, let me finish the Games and then I'll think about it.' But then it's too late, it's the point where depression can become more frequent or severe, when no one has thought about what life will be like after the games," he explains.

Mental health has been a perennial taboo in the world of sport. "Until yesterday, the problem with the stigma against athletes was the belief that they are strong enough to handle such situations on their own. The world sees them as perfect, while they are just like the rest of us and they also struggle with their own personal issues" , explains Cogan, who, however, is optimistic about the issue being brought to light more and more as more athletes speak openly about their ordeals./ CNA