New Olympians show it’s OK not to be OK
I HAVEnever been interested in sport. My enjoyment as a participant was extinguished in primary seven when I competed in the highly esteemed backwards running race and, desperate to win, ran so fast I keeled over and broke my wrist.
As a spectator I’ll tune in for the big events – the World Cup, the Strictly final (oh, be quiet) – but usually out of a sense of obligation. My facial expression while attending football matches could be described as Larry David at a child’s birthday party. You get the idea.
Recently, though, I have been reading the sports section of the news every day with a close attention normally reserved for Bennifer updates.
It’s not the Olympic gold medal headlines I’m drawn to but the increasingly frequent stories of young athletes taking time out from their sport to prioritise their mental health.
On Monday, swimmer Adam Peaty announced he’d be taking a break from the pool for the sake of his mental wellbeing. Ben Stokes did the same last Friday and is now on an “indefinite break” from cricket. Simone Biles, who returned to the beam yesterday, withdrew from the US women’s team gymnastics final at the Olympics last Tuesday to focus on her mental health.
Perhaps none of them would have had the bravery to do so had tennis player Naomi Osaka not stepped away from the French Open in May, and subsequently Wimbledon, due to a bout of anxiety and depression.
And make no mistake: these young sportspeople are brave. It takes courage for anyone to speak out about their mental health, but unimaginable strength to do it on a public stage while battling the weight of the world’s, on top of your own, expectations.
In the sporting realm where Rocky rhetoric reigns supreme and you are measured by how willing you are to persevere regardless of what life throws at you – by “how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward” – it requires maturity and fortitude to reject that mindset and tell Sly Stallone to go do one. Your patter’s four decades old, mate.
Competition, pressure and striving to avoid inferiority are strongly linked with an increased vulnerability to mental illness.
In 2018, the International Olympic Committee reported that 33.6 per cent of elite athletes experienced symptoms of depression and anxiety. Mental health breaks have always been required but have typically been disguised as periods of physical injury, as former track cyclist Callum Skinner told BBC Radio 5 Live at the weekend.
Skinner said he and several other competitors, including Michael Phelps, had used physical injury as a cover for mental health struggles.
“This isn’t the start of a tidal wave of athletes suddenly pulling out of events because of mental ill health,” he added. “It’s just athletes being honest.”
That a pulled hamstring is considered a more palatable reason than depression to not participate in sport speaks to a curious misconception: that physical pain is paralysing and outwith our control, while mental distress is something we can snap ourselves out of if we just try hard enough.
For a crop of the world’s most physically fit, superhuman-seeming people to stand up and say ‘I can’t do this right now, and it’s because of what’s going on in my brain, which you cannot see’ sends a powerful message.
It validates millions of people around the world who suffer from mental health issues and are made to feel it’s a sign of weakness, when in reality it is a normal part of the human condition.
Empathy vacuum Piers Morgan was quick to pen a column last week berating Simone Biles for being “selfish” because she couldn’t overcome her mental block. Biles said she was experiencing “the twisties”, a phenomenon whereby a gymnast’s brain and body slip out of sync, rendering them unable to perform a manoeuvre they’ve undertaken thousands of times before.
As well as being anxiety-inducing it can lead to serious physical harm, so the gymnast said competing while feeling this way wasn’t “worth it”.
“It’s not worth it to push yourself through a wobble to win Gold for your younger teammates who’ve never tasted such Olympic glory?” goaded Morgan. “What exactly is so courageous, heroic or inspiring about quitting on your team and country in an Olympics?”
Piers Morgan, a man who quit his job because his knickers got the twisties when a weatherman slagged him off, thinks sportspeople should neglect their health so that people watching at home can feel good about themselves.
He’s happy for someone to push themselves beyond the edges of their limitations for the entertainment of others. Maybe this is easy for me to ask as someone who isn’t fanatical about sport, but what does it say about our values if we believe the wellbeing of athletes is less important than medals and trophies?
Not that taking a break precludes someone from competing ever again. Morgan failed to acknowledge that Simone Biles did not quit – though there would be nothing wrong with that decision – but took some time out when she recognised she was in danger of harm. That space allowed her to look after herself and make a return yesterday on her own terms, and she’s a better role model for it.
With just under a week to go before Scottish exam results come out, I’m pleased there are people like Simone Biles and Adam Peaty showing young people that success doesn’t hinge on relentlessly pacing the treadmill; that it’s OK to take a break and prioritise your mental health if you’re not ready to launch yourself headfirst into the next phase of your life.
It might not be as motivational or quotable, and it certainly doesn’t make for a captivating Rocky story arc, but sometimes to move forward we need to pause.
Resilience is not running ourselves into the ground and striving to meet other people’s unrealistic expectations at the expense of our sanity.
True resilience is understanding where our boundaries lie, being in tune with our emotions and making decisions that safeguard our bodies and our minds.
Which is why I have never, and will never, run backwards ever again.
True resilience is understanding where our boundaries lie and making decisions that safeguard our bodies and our minds