The Olympics have long been considered the sparkling crown of amateur sports. Athletes spend years of their lives preparing to perform on a world stage, sometimes for only a matter of seconds. Host countries produce choreographed opening and closing ceremonies celebrating global cooperation, and those of us at home watch the entire spectacle as entertainment.
However, the pandemic has reminded us that this massive sporting event is actually a reality show, not a scripted drama. After the 2020 Summer Olympics were postponed for a year, the 2022 Chinese Winter Games went on as planned. However, staging and competing in this massive event was anything but normal. Athletes training for the Olympics faced the same challenges as the rest of us in terms of struggling to maintain normal routines in a socially distanced, uncertain world. As battles rage around us about how best to cope with this chaotic situation, many of us struggle to maintain our equilibrium, but elite athletes literally risk their lives and their mental health when they feel off-balance.
It doesn’t help that making it to the Olympics is a lifelong dream for many athletes and often requires years of training, financial stress, and sacrifice to achieve. But with the advent of COVID, simply making the team and getting to the host country isn’t enough. A single positive viral test can disrupt the best-laid plans.
Most Olympians don’t win medals (and often don’t expect to), but traditionally, marching in the opening and closing ceremonies, spending time with athletes from other countries in the Olympic Village, soaking up the culture of the host country, and performing in front of vast, enthusiastic crowds was part of the Olympic appeal. However, in Japan last summer and now in China, strict COVID protocols mean that athletes are performing in empty arenas and confined to their housing most of the rest of the time. While they will still be able to say they were Olympians, there is bound to be a sense of disappointment about what might have been.
The pandemic has highlighted the human need for social connection.
We need to be able to interact with each other and rely on others for support and companionship. For many athletes, knowing their friends and family were in the stands watching them was a motivator. Likewise, being able to celebrate or commiserate with people in person helped them cope. However, under the current Olympic pandemic protocols, most families are following the action from home and trying to provide support for their athletes via electronic means, which we all know is not the same as being in the same room together. Coping with this additional stress on top of their performance concerns has added one more burden on our athletes.
Of course, controversies are also a part of the Olympic tradition. Some years, it is the facilities or the policies of the host country; other times, it involves the behavior of athletes, their coaches, or their fans. The drama this cycle has revolved around a 15-year-old female figure skater from Russia whose positive test results for a banned drug were not made public until she had already started competing in Beijing. Under tremendous pressure, she fell during her long program and did not earn a medal. As the cameras zoomed in on her tears, a coach with a history of being tough on her athletes criticized her harshly and turned away from her.
Few mature adults would be able to sustain the pressure this young woman has experienced this week, and we all need to accept responsibility for holding the adults around her responsible. If indeed she did take a banned substance, it is unlikely that she did so on her own or had a choice. If her coach behaved this way towards her on a world stage, the tale is probably worse behind closed doors. In the meantime, concerns have been raised about the treatment of a Japanese gymnast and a Chinese tennis player who said unfavorable things about her coaches, two-time Olympic Gold Snowboarder Chloe Kim has spoken out about the anti-Asian sentiment she has had to endure in the wake of her success, and athletes like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka have had to endure criticism and ridicule for speaking out on behalf of their own mental health.
So where do we go from here?
The fact that competitors are still willing to brave all of these hardships for the opportunity to go to the Olympics, and the rest of us are still following their achievements from afar, attests to the universal appeal of a worldwide event that celebrates persistence, excellence, and camaraderie across national and international lines. But does this pursuit really have to occur on the backs of young and talented athletes taxed with winning for themselves, their families, their coaches, and their countries? As a result of the pandemic, many of us have decided to prioritize our health and well-being rather than returning to the same hectic lifestyle we had before. Perhaps it is time to apply some of the things we have learned about ourselves and our mental health to the way we treat the elite sports world.
Should we allow media behemoths to dictate who is treated like a star, who is hounded for interviews, and who needs to “redeem” themselves from making an error that hurt only themselves? Does our need to be entertained supersede the athletes' need to honor their well-being? Surely, we can find a way to monitor how young athletes are treated and to place the blame for malfeasance on the adults around them, not the child who is performing.
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Is Vitamin D Supplementation an Evidence-Based Practice? While there is nothing more thrilling than watching someone truly excel at an activity, and nothing more devastating than finding out that the effort to do so destroyed their life, it doesn’t need to be an either/or choice. As the pandemic has taught all of us, the world can shift rapidly under our feet, and we can’t always control what happens to us. It is the way we treat ourselves and each other that determines whether we can navigate those shifts successfully and maintain our psychological well-being. Whether you are a world-class athlete or the fan on the couch, the real victory is good mental health, not a gold medal.