Mental health takes centre stage at Beijing Games

At the Tokyo Olympics, mental health was the star of the show. Amplified by some of the best athletes in the world, it rocked those Games and made everyone take notice.

Six months later, in Beijing, the topic comes up regularly, but no one is surprised when it does.

Many athletes have spoken about their struggles, but often in a ‘nothing to see here’ way. A difficulty is mentioned, then the conversation continues. After star gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from competition in Tokyo because she wasn’t in the right frame of mind, retired Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps memorably said “it’s okay not to be okay.”

And now, thanks in part to people like Biles, it seems like it’s okay to talk about it, too.

Snowboarding sensation Chloe Kim told reporters after winning gold in Thursday’s half-pipe competition that it’s not fair to expect perfection.

It was Kim’s second gold at an Olympics. He initially tossed away the first, won in Pyeongchang four years ago, a story that epitomizes the dissonance between the cheerful face many champions show the world and the torments they face behind the scenes.

It wasn’t just Kim who was talking about it. After snowboarder Jamie Anderson, who came to Beijing as a two-time defending downhill style champion, finished ninth, she posted on Instagram that her “mental health and clarity just haven’t been up to par.”

Skier Mikaela Shiffrin was particularly honest after failing to finish either of her first two races in events that are her specialties. She said that she had been feeling pressure, something that every elite athlete feels and is different from the more complicated mental health issues that many have been talking about.

But Shiffrin also plumbed greater depths, acknowledging that she was angry at her father, who died in 2020, for not being there to support her.

After finally managing to complete a race on Friday, surprisingly even that had become an open question for the star, he posted on Instagram about the ups and downs of the competition.

When various elite athletes stumbled in Beijing, they were often quick to remind the world that they, too, are human. Shiffrin even has a paid Instagram post, in which the tagline is, “Yes, I’m human.” A far cry from the usual boasting of athletes as being much more than that.

This is what many hoped after Tokyo: that as more athletes recognized what they face behind the scenes, the stigma around talking about mental health would disappear and the issue would simply become one more challenge in the mix.

“I think it’s really normalized with so many athletes talking about their mental health, and there’s been a huge push for parity with mental health and physical health,” said Jess Bartley, director of mental health services for Team USA. USA

Bartley works with athletes to prepare how they will respond to questions about their mental health just as he works with them to prepare for their performance. Some feel comfortable revealing those struggles; others don’t.

Amanda Fialk, clinical director of The Dorm, a mental health treatment program for youth, is encouraged by the increasingly open conversations taking place. But she warns that real change will take much longer to take hold.

She stresses that there are vast cultural differences, between countries and between communities within a given country, that affect access to and stigma around mental health care.

“I’m also aware that old habits are hard to die,” said Fialk, who was a competitive figure skater when she was younger.

IMAGE: AP

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