“The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.” This was the iconic tagline from the Wide World of Sports show when I was growing up back in the day. What’s so interesting to observe is the attitude of the press and the public during events like the Olympic Games. The hype and the expectation leading up to sporting events like this is incredibly high, that I don’t know how these athletes deal with this.
For example, the press coverage today will be focusing on Mikaela Shiffrin who did not finish her 2nd race in the last 2 days. She was heavily favored to win multiple gold medals, and now in an interview following the race she said she was “questioning a lot of things.” Even 2 days ago, the Washington Post had an article entitled. “Mikaela Shiffrin makes a surprising error, and the Olympic monster awakens.”
Of course, this Olympic pressure is not only on US athletes. Zhu Yi is an American-born ice skater who is on team China. She suffered a fall during her program earlier this week, and social media in China embarrassed her on social media. I point you to the CNN article entitled, “What to do about the social media shaming of skater Zhu Yi.”
Stories like these have been very common at the Olympic Games. That is, until the year 2020. At the summer games, gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from some olympic events sighting focusing on her mental health. A few weeks earlier, tennis star Naomi Osaka withdrew from major tennis tournaments sighting the same thing. It was the summer of 2020, where I saw press discussions and public discussions about the mental health of these elite athletes, some of whom are still teenagers or in their 20s.
So, it will be interesting to see public perception and press coverage of the Mikaela Shiffrin situation in the next few days. And of course, discussion of mental health in athletes will inevitably shift to discussions about mental health for all of us. Our own mental health is something that is not talked about that much, except when newsworthy items bubble up in the press. One of the few positive things out of this pandemic is discussion of our mental health.
We need more discussions about mental health, especially how the pandemic has affected us. We definitely need more resources for mental health for the public in general, and for mental health professionals specifically. Hopefully this mental health conversation will continue beyond these olympics....