Snowboarder Jamie Anderson, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, fell several times during the women’s inclined style competition and finished in ninth place. This week, she spoke about the incident, saying that the cause was not physical but mental.
Winter athletes took notice.
“And I think it almost set a precedent, like… I didn’t even realize it was an option, what she decided to do. And I was like, ‘Wow, that really makes me feel a lot better about who.’ I am too as an athlete. Knowing that, you know, when it comes down to it, I can choose my destiny.'”
Other athletes, such as snowboarder Anna Gasser, have echoed those sentiments upon arriving in Beijing.
“Today it gives me a little more positivity,” the three-time Olympic medalist said. “I’d love to run this downhill so that’s the plan. But we’re going to have to see how things go as the days go on because there are sections of this track where some of the more speed-savvy skiers are going to go. excel and improve already tomorrow. And I’m not sure exactly where, how I can improve.
The pandemic and ongoing isolation add to the stress.
As the Beijing Olympics continue, the pressure cannot be overstated. The stressors are everywhere: the weight of representing an entire country, of only getting one chance every four years to compete at this level, of living up to gold medal expectations. And that’s just during a normal Olympic race.
With Covid-19, it’s even worse, said Megan Buning, a teaching specialist at Florida State University’s Interdisciplinary Athletic Training Center.
There are no fans cheering you on, no family or friends to lean on. And for some athletes, there is the added geopolitical pressure of competing in China, a hotbed of political problems, he said.
So now imagine that you are an Olympic athlete. In the same way that seasonal athletes practice and train differently in the preseason, actual season, postseason, and off-season, Olympians do the same thing: the difference is the timeline. While a seasonal athlete may try to peak in the postseason, these athletes train for four years and time their peak for the Olympics, Buning said.
Of course, these athletes are trained to be flexible and adapt to uncertainty. But they are also human, which means that many have also felt the strain of the pandemic and its resulting exhaustion and exhaustion, just like the rest of us.
“When you have things like the added stress of Covid, at some point you get fatigued,” Buning said.
Conversations about mental health predate the last two Olympics
Mental health struggles also existed before Covid-19. Nick Goepper, a freestyle skier who won a bronze in 2014 at the Sochi Olympics, spoke four years later about his struggles after that performance.
Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams and Venus Williams have also been outspoken about the pressure of being a top athlete in the past.
At the Tokyo Olympics last year, Osaka finished the games without a medal, an unexpected result for the four-time Grand Slam champion.
Some say these athletes simply collapsed under pressure, as was said of Biles in Tokyo, Buning noted. There is an idea among some that athletes should smile and endure any pain, physical or mental, exhibited by that memorable line from “A League of their Own”: “There is no crying in baseball.”
“Men have always been told not to show emotion, just get over it. But women have been told that too. And we’re just not connected that way. No one is,” Buning said.
Why the latest conversations about athletes’ mental health matter
The fact that so many people, so many women, have come forward and been honest about the pressure they’re under is huge.
“I feel like women think they can’t say things sometimes or they’re going to get a lot of backlash. And I think with the Williams and Biles sisters, and those who have spoken out since, it takes courage to get where they are. And they’ve just said, ‘I don’t care what you think, this is what I’m experiencing,'” Buning said.
Although it is not clear how many athletes are actually using these resources or managing their mental health in other ways, there is clearly a growing normalization around the issue. Talking about it, at least, is a step.
.
