The Olympics is the sports world’s largest stage. It is a grand spectacle where the world’s fittest humans bring their years of work into stiff competition. There couldn’t be more prestige, more action, more support, more pressure.
Then it’s over.
“I stayed in bed and ordered Uber Eats for four days,” recalled former Olympic bobsled pilot Alysia Rissling of returning from the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“I’m really glad I didn’t have anything I’d committed to be at for those four days because I don’t think I could have if I tried. I don’t think I realized how much sensory overload I had gone through and if I had tried to do anything outside of that, I think it would have been e been catastrophic.”
Rissling, who slept 18 hours on her first day home in Calgary, said the mental and physical crash was necessary. She and her team left early for the competition leading to an entire month surrounded by their intense competition and overstimulation. After the competition, activities didn’t stop. She skipped sleep and embraced the Olympic experience by attending every event and party.
Then came the realization that she’d accomplished her goal of going to the Olympics, but missed out on the podium by less than a second.
“Thank God for Uber Eats,” Rissling chuckled.
Stepping away
Some Paris Olympic athletes are settled back in Canada, others might decide to take in the Closing Ceremonies. What is very common for all athletes is a sort of post-Games blues, or depression or lull.
Rissling took those days of rest then another few weeks to visit family and friends. After that, she took off to Bali alone to attend a surf camp. She’d only ever surfed a few other times in her life, but at least it wasn’t bobsledding.
It came with a sense of relief for the woman who, for the 18 months leading up to the Olympics, could no longer recognize her usual, well-rounded self.
“I ate, slept, and dreamed, and lived bobsled every single day,” Rissling said. “There wasn’t a day that went by that it wasn’t the first thing I thought about, the last thing I thought about before I went to bed. It was obsessive. It was compulsive. It was the only thing that mattered to me.”
Rissling is not alone in struggling with her mental health.
According to a November 2021 study conducted by the University of Toronto, 41.1 per cent of Canadian athletes surveyed in 2019 met the cut-off criteria for one or more mental disorders. That was more than four times higher than the general population at the time.
“31.7 per cent of athletes reported symptoms of depression, 18.8 per cent reported symptoms of moderate (12.9 per cent) to severe (5.9 per cent) general anxiety and 8.6 per cent reported scores indicating a high risk of an eating disorder,” the university stated in a release summarizing the study.
While in Bali, Rissling was able to evaluate who she was a person and who she wanted to be.
“I was getting back to who I am and what I want to experience,” Rissling said. “A mental reset. … Getting in touch with who I am. Not just Alysia the bobsledder.”
When Canadian Archer Crispin Duenas returned from each of his four Olympic appearances (Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020) he put his bow away for about six weeks and headed straight into either school or work … which eventually turned into both (he teaches Math and Physics at Don Mills Collegiate Institute).
That was his plan all along, and it helped him get out of the lull. His coaches, family and friends helped too. During those six weeks, when he wasn’t working, his training included biking, canoeing, camping and just being outside.
“I just can’t sit around because my whole four years before that at that point was not sitting around,” Duenas said. “For me to just go home and just Netflix and snack, that’s just not my thing. … If Netflix is what is good for an individual athlete, then that’s what they should do. But for me, I’m the get-outside kind of athlete.”
Duenas missed his bow during the six weeks, but he knew he needed the mental and physical break.
“You go into a very serious mindset when you’re prepping for any big games, so giving your mind a rest is bigger than giving your body a break, in my opinion,” Duenas said.
The highs and lows
Leaving the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games a Taekwondo bronze medalist in the 67+ kg division was much easier for Dominique Bosshart than leaving the 2004 Athen’s Olympics in seventh place.
“The result in Sydney was just total elation,” Bosshart recalled of the time. “Best day of my life, stars aligning. I won the bronze medal, you know? It’s not losing to get the medal. So, it was like an achievement and the 1st for Canada, for my sport.”
After the Games, Bosshart stayed in Australia for a personal trip and visited the Great Barrier Reef. It was a beautiful opportunity to reset.
Athens was a different story.
“Everything just fell short,” Bosshart said. “My kicks were short, they didn’t land on target, everything was falling short.”
She hadn’t planned on travelling, but a few days after being eliminated she was sitting in Santorini with her teammate, and she told her she was taking advantage of her open plane ticket.
“I spent time on different islands, then, I’m from Switzerland, I went to visit family, then came back, went home, and started a new job,” Bosshart said. “I didn’t have a great Olympic experience but had one of the best experiences travelling by myself.”
Bosshart said that experience was important to help her change her perspective on her time in Athens.
To help the average person understand, sports psychologist and professor at Vancouver Island University, Jordan Herbison explained it is like working for four years to earn a promotion. It could be a person’s singular focus, they could have given everything to get the job, even limited social interaction. Then the promotion is given to someone else just because they were a little bit better.
However it is important for the person to take stock of everything they learned and accomplished along the way.
“It can be hard to see all the value right away, so that’s a huge coming down for the Olympians and Paralympians,” Herbison said.
Mental performance psychologist Karen MacNeill, who is the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Mental Health Lead, said every athlete’s post-Games experience is different. If an athlete has done well, they can experience a sense of isolation when the lights and cameras are gone.
If they haven’t performed to their expectation, she said there’s grief, but also so much more.
“There’s that exposure to the public and the comments around that, and that feeling of ‘I’ve let my country down,’ ‘I’ve disappointed everyone,’” MacNeill said. “Not to mention, for some, there’s a risk of sponsorship losses.
“There can be a real feeling of abandonment or rejection. … It can be quite devastating for them and there can be quite a bit of work required to help them process and navigate that.”
Win or lose, MacNeill said even taking an extended time off physical activity, though necessary in many cases, can also cause a lull because they’re not accessing the endorphins they’re used to.
No timeline to answer “What’s next”
There’s one hard truth every athlete will soon come to realize: Their Games are over. Then they ask: What now?
“You don’t need the answer to that the day after you come home,” Rissling said as advice to athletes returning home from Paris. “Take all the time you need. You deserve to be able to do that.”
MacNeill agreed that as tempting as it is, there is no rush to answer that question. Athletes should reflect on their Olympic experience, assess where they are, how they got there, and what they need now.
“The reflection piece is critical,” MacNeill said. “I think if we move people past reflection too soon, then they’ll miss that processing piece and things can pop up later.”
Bosshart, now a Game Plan Advisor for the Canadian Sport Institute of Ontario, said taking the time off can help an athlete reevaluate or shift their perspective on the Games. She said often athletes, regardless of their Games outcome, must be fair to themselves.
“Even just the recognition (of a negative mental health moment) can help elevate the downward pull of what might be a spiral, or the post-Games blues or depression even.”
“We’re all still learning,” MacNeill urged. “But I think Canada is doing a phenomenal job, and the partners at the (Canadian Olympic Committee), even having me on site is a real testament to their commitment to taking care of the whole athlete.”
Getting back at it starts before the Games
After a summer of not physically not treating herself the best, the sunrise on a new season drew Rissling back into training. For Duenas, how awful it felt to shoot his bow the same way he did at the Games is motivation enough.
“I feel so weak after six weeks off my sport,” Duenas said. He said he’d pull back his bow and ask how he managed to do this six days a week. Then comes the realization of how strong he was and how strong he could become again.
“I used that kind of as a motivation to kick my butt back into gear and be prepped for whatever’s next,” Duenas said.
In her role with Game Plan, Bosshart connects with athletes and ensures they know about Game Plan’s services which includes planning for what happens after the Games.
But that plan should really be set out months in advance, Bosshart urged. She pointed to Game Plan’s Beyond the Big Moment worksheet. She admitted it can be a little hokey, but athletes can pick and choose what resonates with them in order to put a plan together for themselves.
“If you leave it till after, you’re already in the emotions of things,” Bosshart said. Pointing to the research she’s learned from, she added “It actually elevates a lot of the stress, to have a plan for what happens after the games. …
“It could be anything. It could be vacations, it could be going back to school, it could be giving downtime before preparing for another competition.”
MacNeill said athletes should aim to know that while they’re hyper-focused on their Olympic goal, they’re more than just an athlete. This is something Herbison said he works with his elite athletes on.
He said after the Games athletes need to embrace that transition into other social identities and engage in what responsibilities and values that come with those identities.
“After taking some time to decompress after the Games, spending some time with family, things like that, can be really good to sort of get back in touch with some of those goals, and some of the purposes that that individual might have outside of sport, to help sort of fulfill that gap,” Herbison said.
Never alone
How long the post-Games blues will last will depend on how it is treated.
“Just like a physical injury, if I don’t go to physio, if I don’t ice it, maybe the pain goes away but the injury is still there. It is the same psychologically,” MacNeill said. “If there is something that happens post and you don’t do anything, it can linger.”
As an alternate Duenas is watching the Paris Games from home. Even though he’s feeling a little bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) he’s also having a lot of fun.
“I’m getting really into it,” Duenas said. “It’s almost like following a series every day because I know the stories of what happened to the athletes the day before.”
His advice to athletes is to know they’re never alone.
“If you face this (post-Olympics) lull, get help right away,” Duenas said.
“Don’t try to deal with it yourself. If you don’t want to reach out to a coach, reach out to a teammate or a friend who will know what it is like to go through that. … Trying to face that alone, I don’t think is going to be healthy for the majority of the athletes out there.”
Mental health resources for Canada’s Olympians:
Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport
Canadian Mental Health Association