'ACTUALLY I'M NOT COPING' - OLYMPIC MEDALLIST

[The_Bro]

Hi Everyone

I was stunned when reading yesterday that around 30% of Olympic athletes suffer depression or anxiety after the Games.

Here they are, the best athletes in the world, who have the discipline and talent to succeed, falling into mental difficulty after the Games.

Australian athletes sacrifice so much to achieve - family, social contact, physical setbacks, relentless training hours.

Plus financially - our athletes get paid a pittance in Australia for all that sacrifice and talent.

Could this be the cause? Yet Michael Phelps, the American swimmer with more medals than any one, and a net worth of over $90million (yes that's right!), fell into deep depression after the Rio Olympics. Add Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and the list of wealthy champions with mental struggles goes on.

What do you think? It seems that once selected and before the Games, athletes are surrounded by attention - coaches, mentors, physios, sports psychologists, nutritionists etc etc.

Then straight after the games there is nothing. Oh maybe a victory parade. If the athlete is good enough and personable enough and had a good manager, there is a chance of endorsements and commercial fame - but does this help with depression? Lots of very famous people get depressed.

Succeeding as a medallist seems to help a bit, according to the research. But those who may perform at their very best but don't get on the podium struggle with self worth.

Then there's social media which can be a killer with all those uninformed keyboard trolls getting stuck into athletes for all sorts of reasons.

POST GAMES PLAN

Some of the athletes found that to work in personal plan to implement straight after the games helped a lot. The plan could be anything from study, renovating that room, fixing up that neglected garden, helping a charity and so on. Or a new training plan.

It also appears that it is very important to keep up strong social contacts - with friends and colleagues who help you ease back into the real world.

Anyway I thought it might be useful to comment on this. Sorry to rave on but I did find it interesting!

Please let me know what you think. Any athletes out there who have found it hard to cope after a major competition?

Bye for now - The Bro

[jtjt_4862]

Hi The Bro,

Thank you for starting this discussion topic. I've always wondered, for the 4 years of training prior to the Olympics competition, how does an athlete survive in the world where it's run on money that is only obtainable through a job. If an athlete is constantly in training every single day, I wonder if they have to integrate full-time jobs into their training schedule as well, in order to earn money to survive. If that's the case, that's a very intense life that they have to live, and can certainly cause a lot of stress on their well being.

I also feel, having the weight of your country depending on you to succeed in the Olympics, is a very heavy burden for an athlete to be carrying. And the super strict training schedule that they have to follow, all for the sake of winning, doesn't leave them much room to be free and express how they feel. It was heart breaking to hear about Simone Biles's history, how she endured a kidney stone pain to compete in one of the matches (and it was amazing how she won Gold for that). I'm really glad that she called it quits during this year's Olympics, for the sake of her mental health. She must've had a lot of stress and emotions bottled up, and any further would damage her mental health tremendously. It is very brave of her to do so, and glad that she had a lot of supportive people around her for doing so. There are many medals/competition to be won, but we only have one life that's dependent on our physical and mental well being...

Jt

[The_Bro]

Gidday JT - thanks heaps for replying. Doesn't is make us feel great to be acknowledged?

You make some excellent points. It's no secret that our swimmers gave us over half our medals.

Gina Riehardt gives over $10million per year to athletes, the bulk of which goes directly to swimming athletes themselves. Dawn Fraser said the other day she wished Gina was around when she was swimming!

The pressures these athletes face and overcome are immense.

Thanks again - Bye now. The Bro.