Biles, Osaka, Phelps Spoke on Mental Health Issues: Has Anything Changed for the Paris Olympics?

Lydia Jacoby was a star in the U.S. pool at the last Summer Olympics, winning gold in the 100-meter breaststroke and silver in the relay. What involves mind from those heady days in Tokyo? “People talking about post-Olympic depression,” she said.

She was 17 at the time, and her first response when other athletes brought up the subject was, “Well, that doesn’t apply to me.”

“I didn’t really understand depression,” she said. “It wasn’t until after the Games that I was like, ‘Oh… OK. Yeah, I feel that a little bit.’”

Jacoby, who didn’t qualify for the 2024 Olympics, is now fully aware of the phenomenon, has lived through it, overcome it and speaks freely about it. All of this is a sign of how much the mental health landscape has modified in only a number of years.

As the Paris Olympics begin Friday and the Paralympics begin Aug. 28, athletes have more access than ever to resources on this once-taboo sphere, and so they seem more willing than ever to make use of them. That seems especially significant provided that Jessica Bartley, senior director of psychological services for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, says about half of the nation’s athletes at the past two Olympics have been flagged as having a minimum of one in every of the following conditions: anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, eating disorders, substance use or abuse.

“Now we’re really just part of the conversation,” Bartley said, “not something on the back burner or something we think about when someone’s struggling.”

Among the key questions now: Will everyone seek the help they need? And is there enough help available?

As for the former, Bartley said: “I’d prefer to think we have gotten past that time, but we’re not quite there yet. I feel like there’s still some stigma. I believe there’s still some associations with ‘weakness.’

And the second? “I think there could be more,” said track and field star Gabby Thomas, “but, I mean, they are.”

Olympians Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Michael Phelps opened the door

Three Olympians — Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, who competed in the last pandemic-delayed Summer Games and are returning, and former swimmer Michael Phelps, who has more medals than anyone else in any sport — are amongst the loudest voices in an evolving global conversation in sports and society about the importance of protecting, evaluating and improving the mind as much as the body.

Phelps has spoken about having suicidal thoughts at the height of his profession and helped produce a documentary about depression amongst Olympic athletes. He has also called on the International Olympic Committee and the USOPC to do more.

“I think there’s something to be said for a lot of really, really good athletes talking about the same issue. I know not all athletes feel the same way; you have to be a certain type or have a certain state of mind. Some people just feel things differently,” said Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion and former No. 1-ranked player who lit the pot in Japan.

She has been open about her struggles with anxiety and depression, and was one in every of the first sports figures to take a break from competition for mental health reasons, paving the way for others to do the same.

Osaka, for her part, said she felt “very heard” when listening to Biles and Phelps.

“I’m sure a lot of different athletes felt heard as well,” Osaka said. “They didn’t feel like it was a weakness or anything like that, so I’m really glad we all talked about it.”

Biles, who redefined excellence in gymnastics and won seven Olympic medals along the way, drew attention, and a few criticism, for withdrawing from the Tokyo competition due to a mental block — known in the gymnastics world as “the twisties” — that left her afraid to perform certain dangerous moves.

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The indisputable fact that her explanation of what went improper got here in such a public setting as the BIGGEST star in Tokyo made all of it the more meaningful to other athletes.

“She didn’t have to,” said WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart. “She used her position to help others.”

What Biles did resonated with athletes like Tokyo gold medalist kayaker Nevin Harrison, who said that “anxiety, fear, stress… are going to play a huge role in competing at that level.”

Biles showed them that a way out of the situation was possible.

“I was in that situation once,” said boxer Morelle McCane, “when I just thought, ‘Do or die! Do or die!'”

How different is that this from the Olympic Games today?

Janet Evans won 4 gold medals in swimming at the 1988 and 1992 Games and recalls the relentless pressure to prove herself. In her day, she says, there was nowhere near the empathy or support available to Olympic athletes today.

“We didn’t talk about struggle. Nobody taught me that it’s OK to lose, right? You know, I was Janet Evans, and when I went to the swim meet, I was going to win,” said Evans, the chief athlete officer for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. “We’re talking about it now and recognizing it in our athletes. And I think that’s an important first step.”

That means even 38-year-old rugby player Perry Baker has noticed changes since his Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

“You had to wait it out. You felt a little lonely. You felt like you couldn’t talk to anybody,” said Baker, who played briefly for the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles.

Evans admitted that national Olympic committees have to search out a balance between caring for athletes as people and ensuring that medals accumulate, which is a “difficult task”.

“We should go to the Olympics and Paralympics and win medals. But I don’t think that should come at the expense of how we prepare our athletes for the future,” Evans said. “Both can happen.”

That’s where Bartley and her counterparts from other countries and the IOC are available in.

The Beijing Winter Olympics two years ago were the first to provide national Olympic committees additional powers to ask athlete welfare employees—registered mental health professionals or qualified safeguarding experts. More than 170 representatives from greater than 90 countries can be in Paris.

“We didn’t have that in Tokyo, and now it’s going to be implemented at every Games,” said Kirsty Burrows, head of the IOC’s unit on athletes’ mental health. “Because we’re really seeing the impact.”

There can be a 24-hour mental health hotline with counselors who speak greater than 70 languages, a program that was launched for the Beijing Games but is now available to each Olympian and Paralympian for as much as 4 years after the event, artificial intelligence that monitors athletes’ social media for cyberbullying, and a “mind zone” in the athletes’ village with a yoga space, dim lighting, comfortable seating and other tools “dedicated to disconnecting, to decompressing,” Burrows said.

The USOPC has gone from six mental health providers 3 1/2 years ago to fifteen now; 14 can be in France. Last 12 months, 1,300 Team USA athletes participated in greater than 6,000 therapy sessions organized by the USOPC.

“I expect the numbers to be even higher,” Bartley said, “particularly in an Olympic year.”