Psyched For The Olympics? How Therapy For Top Athletes Went Mainstream

Updated July 30, 2024 at 2 p.m.*

PARIS — Valentin Belaud, a two-time world champion in modern pentathlon, sees his psychologist every week.

“It has become essential to me. I’d sooner skip a swimming session than one with my psychologist,” said the French athlete who trains in fencing, swimming, horse riding, shooting and running, the five specialties that make up his sporting discipline.

“Counseling allows me to see my progress according to the seasons and competitions, whether my results are good or bad. Today, I feel that my mental health is stronger, and it allows me to push myself further. That’s why it’s so important to me,” he explained.

The 31-year-old turned to psychological counseling after becoming world champion for the first time, in 2016.

“At first, my motivation was to perform even better in competition because I wanted to become world champion again. Then, over time, I discovered that this work resonated with all aspects of my life, whether it’s my relationships with my coaches, my training partners, my family. Especially because I have an atypical profile: my partner, Elodie Clouvel, is also a very high-level athlete,” said Belaud, who at the time of the interview did not know if they would both qualify for the Paris Olympics.

Breaking stereotypes

Today, psychological support no longer is a taboo in high-level sport. For Belaud, this evolution mostly comes from the fact that a lot of athletes, including French judo star Teddy Riner, now speak out about it openly.

“He talked about it from the beginning of his career in this combat sport and that helped a lot not to see it as a sign of weakness,” Belaud said. A two-time Olympic champion and 10-time world champion, Riner often mentions Meriem Salmi, the clinical psychologist he has been seeing since he was 14.

At the international level, American gymnast Simone Biles and Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka have also helped to open up the conversation around this subject.

“It meant challenging a myth, the myth of the champion, the colossus, a supposedly invincible person.”

“In sports, it has been necessary to show that taking care of your mental health also meant taking care of your performance, that they were not contradictory and that they even went hand in hand,” said Salmi, who also follows Belaud and other high-level athletes and “has been fighting for 30 years” to break stereotypes.

“It wasn’t easy because it meant challenging a myth, the myth of the champion, the colossus, a supposedly invincible person,” she said. Salmi began working on the issue in the 1990s, when she was setting up a soccer training center.

“I saw 12- and 13 year-olds, alone, far from their families, already under significant pressure, and that led me to build psychological support for high-level athletes, at a time when no one cared.”

The mental dimension

Salmi worked at France’s National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (Insep), where she was responsible for psychological counseling from 2000 to 2013. When she returned to the Insep in 2017, psychological counseling was moved in a new building.

“We took it out of the medical department and put it in the performance building. The idea was to dissociate it from the ‘white coats’,” said Ghani Yalouz, former general director of the institute (2017-2021).

“When I was an athlete, I was among the first to say that I didn’t need it, that I wasn’t sick. I saw it as a form of fragility,” said Yalouz, the most decorated French wrestler at the international level. “It wasn’t until I switched to the management side that I realized how important it was. Taking care of your mental health is essential for a healthy progression in your career.”

Now, we even talk about the “mental dimension” to encompass everything from psychopathology to mental preparation for the big day, said clinical psychologist Emilie Chamagne. For the Paris Olympics, she is in charge of counseling three French teams: the Paralympic rowing team, the speed climbing team and the athletics team.

“The big question is identifying mental health needs,” Chamagne said. When she began her mission for the French Athletics Federation (FFA) in February 2023, she realized that the teams did not communicate their needs to her, “quite simply by lack of habit.” She therefore went on a mission to educate the various players, through regular meetings, in particular, around mental health.

Mind performance

Yann Baillon, national technical director of the French Karate Federation (FFK), explained the different needs of athletes: “Some will need a psychologist, others a sophrologist and others will prefer to work on mental imagery. There are several parameters that come into play: the needs, but also the athlete’s desire to be followed or if they get along with the professionals.”

Sometimes, mental preparation can also be a gateway to psychological support, when the athlete is reluctant at first but those around him think that the need is there.

In any case, it is rare for a high-level athlete not to need any mental health support. “Maybe 1% or 2% of athletes only have the natural ability to handle it,” said Maxime Laheurte, a former Nordic combined world champion. Laheurte, who converted to mental preparation after hanging up his skis five years ago, is convinced that he played out all of his sporting performances in his mind.

“Being in an environment where excellence is the goal is particularly anxiety-inducing.”

On his website, he presents himself in figures: “4 Olympic Games, 4 world medals, 1 world champion title, 209 World Cups, 2 World Cup podiums, 32 tantrums, 568 unmanageable moments of stress, 38 misunderstandings with my coaches, 2 stressed parents, 72 sleepless nights…” The particularities of elite athletes’ life can lead to stress, anxiety, sleeping disorders or even depressive episodes.

“Being in an environment where excellence is the goal is particularly anxiety-inducing because you are constantly in competition, you have a very intense daily rhythm and you must always be at the top level,” Salmi said. “Athletes can encounter dysfunctions in their sporting life, with their coaches or in their training group, but also in their private life. Anything can be a source of imbalance.”

Not to mention that most lead a double life, studying or working in parallel to their training. “Few athletes manage to make a living from their sport,” Laheurte said. “Many are in very precarious situations.”

Post-competition blues, diets and injuries

“The mental health of an athlete is closely linked to their physical health,” said French rower Baptiste Savaete, who won the bronze medal in the lightweight single sculls at the European Championships at the end of April. “Periods of injury can be very difficult to live through. You feel physically and mentally weak, on edge,” he said, noting the dietary constraints of his sport: “In my lightweight category in rowing, you cannot weigh more than 70 kg in a crew and 72.5 kg individually.”

The French Karate Federation’s Baillon remembers an athlete from a specific weight category who arrived on the day of a competition with 4 extra kilos (8.8 pounds). “When you know that the tolerance is 200 grams (7 ounces), it is obvious that she was sending us a message. As I talked with her, I realized that her season was too busy and that she was suffering from it,” he said.

The post-competition period is also a particularly delicate time for athletes, whatever the result.

“It’s hard to get back into the real world after a week of competition. You are full of endorphins and adrenaline, you’ve experienced very strong emotions, joy, sadness, and then suddenly, it is all over. The feeling of emptiness is overwhelming,” said Savaete, who will be a substitute for the lightweight double at the Paris Olympics.

Winning the greatest competitions does not exempt you from post-competition blues. “We think that we can only fall into depression when we fail. But when we succeed, we don’t expect to receive such a blow,” French rower Hugo Boucheron told sport news program “Stade 2,” two years after winning the gold medal with Matthieu Androdias at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Coaches, too

In athletes’ entourages, everyone is very aware of the need to prepare for the post-Olympic period. “We’ve known for seven years that we’ll have the Games at home. It’s a very strong goal and it will happen very fast. There will be successes, there will be disappointments, there will be a void afterward,” said Florian Rousseau, director of the Olympic program at the French Cycling Federation (FFC).

“At the federation, we are already working on this subject with our mental health advisor, on how to spot the signals, how to support this transition period and start a new Olympic cycle,” said the former track cyclist. Rousseau himself experienced this “void” in 2000, after winning three Olympic medals in Sydney: “I felt less enthusiasm on a daily basis, less desire, but easing off, fatigue, etc.”

“Even coaches can be affected by this depression effect, almost in the geographical sense,” psychologist Chamagne said. “With the Paris Olympics, everyone’s emotions are going to climb very high and the descent is going to be dizzying. The entire ecosystem of athletes must be prepared.”

“Psychological counseling for coaches is becoming a thing. The job comes with a lot of emotions.”

There is now a general awareness of the importance of the mental health of those around athletes. “Psychological counseling for coaches is becoming a thing. The job comes with a lot of emotions and you have to make difficult decisions because you are both a coach and a selector,” Baillon said. “When you tell an athlete you’ve known since he was 16 that he hasn’t been selected and that, from one day to the next, he doesn’t talk to you anymore, it’s very difficult to live with.”

While the taboos have been lifted, there is still a long way to go to fully deploy the mental health apparatus in elite sport. “Involving a doctor or a physiotherapist during a competition is easy. Bringing in your psychologist still requires explanations and negotiations, even though it is just as important, if not more,” Belaud said.

For Chamagne, it is essential that institutions give the necessary importance to this dimension. “Sometimes, we feel like we are being asked to tick a box, without giving us the time, space or funding to do our job,” said the psychologist, who appreciates all the more having “carte blanche” at the FFA.

“We must continue to work on the preconceived ideas around psychology, to inform, raise awareness and train,” Salmi said. Relentlessly, until the mental health of athletes is a priority shared by all players in sport.

*Originally published July 27, 2024, the article was updated July 30 with enriched media.