tokyo 2020 olympics

Olympic athletes confront mental health challenges

10 Comments
By JAY COHEN

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10 Comments
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poor things! having to put up with the sorts of situations that people everywhere have to deal with, always: 'real life'.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Poor babies. You choose to enter Japan during a State of Emergency and where the majority of citizens and residents don’t want you here now. Also this state of emergency which negatively impacts Japanese citizens and their livelihoods, seems to have been implemented just for you.

Cry me a river!!

6 ( +6 / -0 )

At least some of the athletes will have to deal with the reality of acting against the whole point of being a sports profesional, if the purpose is to promote a healthy lifestyle by making people see the positive effects of physical activity, it will not sit well to do it by promoting risk of heavy complications and death with an international event the health experts have clearly expressed to be against.

Probably for many the point is to be famous and rich with the support of sponsors, but I want to believe at least some do it for the right reasons, and this time those good reasons are very difficult to justify.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I have some sympathy here, but the whole point of physical activity is to be healthy. At elite level, training involves a huge load on the body. Many athletes suffer from constant colds, joint pain, and other minor ailments. Such physical demands may be exceeded by the mental ones. Sure, for some athletes it is their job and they are paid for it, just as others are paid to wreck their bodies and minds on building sites, in factories, or in office chairs in front of screens. When its the Olympics though, not that many are paid, and they will be there through self-financing or the kindness of others, such as their parents.

Entertainment aside, the justification for elite sports is that they are metaphors for being as good as you can be. However, I suspect even the world record holders themselves fail to give the same dedication to other parts of their lives.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Stay away then go get counseling , we dont want you to suffer any more mental anguish than the rest of us have had to.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Yes the mental health challenge of going to a place in a State of Emergency due to the COVID pandemic, where 80% of the country do not want you, where you know in your heart this is the wrong thing to do even though all you dream of is Gold, where you face an increased risk of of catching the virus, (and you signed away all your responsibility to this to yourself) and where you are staying in a lock downed bubble village on cardboard beds without your usual condom supply, must indeed be devastating! Not coming might work better than any counselling you can get for all these things!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

2021 competitors are use to having all outside negative factor dealt without effecting their metal preparation. This is a very different ride. These Olympic will see the competitor with the best metal patients and metal endurance excels and the competitor with pure skill and talent faultier.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Everyone is facing the same mental challenges from living in a COVID world. It will all even out in their performances.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

At the very top elite level, the similarities in physical conditioning are so close, that the difference between a medal or no medal is in the mental conditioning. It's wise to take care of their mental state too - they need any edge they can get

A slight loss of focus in just a micro-second could mean years of training going down the drain. If they let the thought of Covid at the wrong moment cloud their judgement, they'd lose to somebody else who didn't

Perhaps get a real job.

Many of them do - the Olympic sport is their side-job (they don't get much money from the sport, so they earn their living in another career)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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