In order for their mental illness to be considered in the same way as a physical injury, more and more athletes are speaking out. This is the case of the American skier Mikaela Shiffrin. She is participating in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics which have just started. On this occasion, Marion Rolland, world ski champion and president of CREDIR Sport, explains to us why suffering and psychological blockages are still taboo in sport.
– Why doctor: At the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, you fell a few meters from the starting line. This fall earned you a cruciate ligament injury but also a media outburst. How did you experience this situation?
Marion Roland : This period was very complicated. It wasn’t the knee injury that hurt me, because when you do high-level sport, you are more or less prepared to suffer injuries. For me, it’s the “bashing” aspect on social networks and in the national media that has been difficult to manage. Few people know this, but during this event, during my starting push, I was a little off balance, which caused a rupture of the cruciate ligaments and made me fall, and not the other way around. After this fall, I was the first to be ashamed, even though I knew it was related to a physical defect. You can blame yourself, but the fact that this event resonated so much on social networks and in the media was even harder.
– How did you manage to manage this injury and this media outburst and to move forward?
At the time of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, I was already followed by a mental trainer, and had been for a year. Fortunately, I had started this personal process, because the French Ski Federation did not help me much from a psychological point of view. My coaches, the members of the association and the group of the French Alpine Skiing Team were present for me, but there was no psychological cell dedicated to this type of problem. We had a follow-up once or twice a year during the classic medical visits. The federation did not want to impose a mental trainer on the athletes because not everyone needs one at the same time. Moreover, at that time, these professionals who accompany athletes were considered gurus who were going to turn us upside down and make us act anyhow.
Once the media tsunami passed, I found myself alone having to treat my knee and to face my doubts and my fears. After going to the rehabilitation center, I didn’t want to go back to my resort right away (Les Deux-Alpes, editor’s note). I preferred to stay with my grandparents for about a month. I didn’t want to meet anyone because I felt shitty.
To overcome this difficult period, it took time and setting new sporting objectives, with my mental trainer, following a short, medium and long-term protocol, that is to say, to return to the slopes, to find sensations then participate in the world championship of alpine skiing in 2011 and 2013.
I managed to move on after a trip to Malaysia with a girlfriend. At the beginning of our stay, we met several French people there. We quickly came to talk about skiing. Some asked me if I knew the skier who had fallen a few meters from the starting line. I couldn’t admit it was me. Each time, my girlfriend had to answer for me. After three weeks, I said to myself that I had to accept this fall, because this event was part of my story but did not define me.
– Why is mental health still a taboo subject in sport?
When you are an athlete, you should not be weak or show that you are not well. If you do it as part of a team sport, you can be sidelined for a while. Within the framework of an individual sport, the psychological sufferings are directly associated with our personal performances. As soon as it goes wrong in the head, there is a good chance that it will not go in terms of results. We can therefore be less popular with managers or breeders. For some athletes, this can be a kick in the ass. Being left out can motivate them to perform better and help them build self-confidence. For other athletes, who are already psychologically vulnerable, it can be completely destructive.
Athletes tend to build a shell. But a sportsman is not a superman. He is a human being, he can also have faults, doubts. During his career, there are often more lows than highs. If he is not helped, he will not be able to get out of it and get up on his own. And in general, during competitions, athletes are far from their families and have had difficulty communicating with them. Sometimes the members of the federations on the ground are not ready or prepared to listen to their grievances. If the person shows empathy, he will be able to put himself in the athlete’s shoes and find solutions. But if she fails to understand the athlete, she may not have the right words to help him.
Several factors can cause stress, burnout, lack of self-confidence or nervousness. Among them, we find moments of doubt but also a complicated financial situation. You should know that not all athletes are very well paid. In some cases, having to manage your social networks in addition to workouts and bodybuilding and physical therapist sessions can also lead to anxiety. Retraining or injury can also be stressful for athletes.
– A survey published in November 2021 and conducted among French athletes, mostly high-level, alerted to the mental health of young athletes. What solutions can help to deal with their psychological suffering?
CREDIR Sport, an entity that wants to support athletes with mental health problems, wants to try to quickly set up a hotline (a direct telephone line) to receive testimonies from athletes and try to understand their needs and problems. We will also try to create a team with athletes and members of CREDIR (an NGO that fights against the exhaustion of human beings).
We are also going to set up training courses for people working in federations and centres, such as INSEP or STAPS, who are called upon to supervise high-level athletes. The goal is to open their eyes to the psychological problems of athletes and to help them have an empathetic discourse with athletes, from an early age. Another initiative: organize internships for athletes so that they can interact with other athletes and rebuild themselves.
– What message would you like to convey to young athletes?
Know that this complicated period will soon be behind you. Above all, do not hesitate to surround yourself with the right people. Listening ears are not necessarily right next to you. There are specialists who can provide support and comfort when you are going through difficult times. So don’t be alone.
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