“Right now I’m not proud of myself, I’m just disgusted and disappointed,” said Romane Dicko after losing in the semifinals of the Paris Olympic judo tournament on August 2, 2024, despite ultimately winning the bronze medal. EUGENE HOSHKO/AP
“This defeat will haunt me for the rest of my life,” “I am filled with shame,” “I have been through hell, a nightmare.” These words from athletes who failed at the Paris 2024 Olympics reveal how flaws in performance and post-performance management can have a serious impact on their mental health, a risk also faced by the 4,400 athletes competing in the Paralympic Games, which will be held from August 28 to September 8.
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Dennis Howe, a psychologist and professor of sports psychology at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, believes these reactions indicate the limitations of a mindset that focuses on winning at the expense of learning how to deal with failure. Howe has worked with top athletes and their coaches in a variety of Olympic sports for more than 25 years. During that time, he has studied the psychological factors that contribute to high-level athletic performance.
Many of the participants in Paris 2024 benefited from the mental preparation, but how do we explain the feelings of worthlessness and breakdown experienced by those who did not perform as expected?
This could be attributed to a confusion of self and performance. In France, the physical and mental preparation of top athletes is oriented towards victory, without taking into account the possibility of failure. Following outdated cultural standards, we strive for the best and deny the possibility of failure, out of fear that it might happen. But it is fear that paralyzes.
We forget that athletes are, above all, human beings, that failure is an integral part of elite-level sport, and that learning how to confront and cope with failure is a key goal for developing competitive, resilient athletes. As a result, many athletes are embarrassed by failure and suffer from immediate effects such as an emotional breakdown, or more diffuse delayed reactions such as a drop in performance levels, or even worse, depression or psychological trauma.
Might the pressure of national expectations (real or imagined) in a domestic competition be an exacerbating factor in the event of failure?
The domestic element and the resulting media coverage adds to the stress of competitive sport, and failure often compounds the athlete’s feelings of guilt, weakness and disappointment at not being able to prove themselves to their country and those around them.
However, the issue is subjective and some athletes thrive in this atmosphere: they see it as an additional source of support and can distance themselves from it at any time. This proves that developing mental resilience from an early age can and should be an essential part of the preparation of top-level athletes.
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