Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and mental health in sport: why it is important to talk about this as they did, what is needed and some expert advice

(Spanish CNN) - Few spectators on Tuesday in the stands of the Ariake Gymnastics Center.Covid-19 pandemic did not allow it.But millions were attentive to their screens, mobile devices, radios.Simone Biles, a American gymnast that is considered by many as the best in history, was about to start his second participation in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, although this time it was by medal and not just a qualifying round.

Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2021.Event: Final Women's Gymnastics by teams.Initial test: horse jump.Biles looked forward, although he turned to the sides sometimes.He started his career, arrived at the jump, was promoted by airs, but the landing was not clean.Something happened.

The gymnast withdrew from the team final (and then also from the individual final All-Around).A physical injury was feared due to the landing he had (he almost falls on his knees), but the affectation was in what we cannot see: the mind.

Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka: Take care of mental health to be physically

Simone Biles stumbles when he lands during the female final of artistic gymnastics at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

"Whenever you are in a situation of great stress, you scare yourself," said Biles, 24, to journalists after the event."I have to concentrate on my mental health and not endanger my health and well -being".

Biles was clear: he had not had any injury, but pointed out that they were a lot of stress, where there are various variables that affect sports performance.

"These Olympic Games have really been stressful," added the gymnast."I think, in general, not having a audience: there are many different variables that come into play.It has been a long week, a long Olympic process.It has been a long year, so many different variables.I think we are too stressed.We should be having fun ".

Just a few hours earlier, tennis player Naomi Osaka suffered a defeat in the third round of the female tennis competition, which was a surprise to be one of Japan's greatest representatives.Osaka also said that the pressure and expectations surrounding their performance contributed to their difficulties when competing.

"I definitely feel that there was a lot of pressure on this," Osaka said after the game."I think it's perhaps because I haven't played before at the Olympic Games and to be the first year (it was) too much.I think I'm happy about how I played, to take that break I had ".

The Olympic Games were the first Osaka tournament since he retired from Roland Garros two months ago for mental health reasons.

"I have taken long breaks before and I have managed to do well," said Osaka."I do not say that I have done wrong now, but I do know that my expectations were much older.

Both biles and Osaka, beyond the result in the competition, put in the public eye the issue of mental health, which is of vital importance and that affects many athletes for years.We need to talk about this now.

A bigger problem than we think

Biles and Osaka raised their voice and it is now possible to make the subject more visible.They are banners of the situation and two women who have seen their mental health affected, but the problem is bigger than we think.

According to the 'Epidemiological Report of Mental Health in Sports', carried out by the Euroamericas Sport Marketing and Sport Hubation Center (both directed by Gerardo Molina), four out of 10 athletes revealed to suffer anxiety, "a pathology described asA feeling that combines restlessness, impatience, alarm, uncertainty and fear ".

"In addition, two out of 10 athletes suffered from depression at some point in their career: 25% are currently going through it and the other 45% indicated having suffered it in the past," he says.

The report, whose executive summary had access to CNN, dates from March 2020 and to carry it out they met almost 4.000 athletes from America and Europe.

The data gives magnitude to a part of the problem;However, it is a report before COVID-19, Molina said in an interview with CNN, so the figures can be higher due to the effects on the mental health caused by the pandemic

"Health is actually physical well -being, mental and social well -being of a person in general.In sport, only physical and training are spoken, leaving aside this definition of what health means, which is not just training and being in good condition, "Molina told CNN.

"In the current high performance, we are going to find that it is not healthy today because it has become a true obsession.The fact of looking for triumph under any type of circumstance and without support ".

And the problem of little importance to mental health in sport was not born overnight, but is a historical consequence.

Naomi Osaka

How do we get here?Sport as a big business

According to Molina, the sports industry as we know it now had its boom from the 90s with globalization: the largest leagues in sport begin to be transmitted in several countries and the media start 100% sports television channels.

Likewise, sports organizations (such as clubs, federations, teams, world worldwide.

From these moments, it is when the pressure exerted by sport as a business against athletes is seen more.

"Everything that is the world that surrounds the athlete demands much more: sponsorships, press, contracts.On the one hand, it is what many athletes want, but then being there is not so easy and it is not for anyone, "said Juan Manuel Brindisi, a sports psychologist who has worked with national teams of the Argentine Soccer Association (AFA),In an interview with CNN.

More pressure from the arrival of the Internet

At the time of conceiving sports organizations as a big business, the sports part is as something secondary, according to Molina.

"It was not conceived, at that time (decade of 1990), the process of dividing clubs into two very important areas, which is the economic-financial structure and sports structure.(Therefore), an area where the psychological support or care of the health of athletes was not conceived within the sports structure, "said the sports management specialist.

With the arrival of the Internet and social networks, sport was further promoted as a business and, at the same time, pressure and violence against athletes, which impacts their mental health.

"Sports psychology was and is still absent in the main entities and in the main sports properties.There is no structure (that is, a specific governing entity) that is dedicated to sports psychology and the care of the mental health of the players.A very large space is needed within the structures and not an external consultation "by the athletes themselves, Molina added.

Social problems

Together with the inherent pressures of the industry and what social networks entail, the social problems that continue to significantly affect historically disadvantaged and marginalized sectors are also present.

"The problems that come from society and context affect the player and affect athletes.We have problems such as racism, homophobia, sexism, demanded perfectionism.All of them can somehow have some possible damage to mental health, "Molina said.

Simone Biles has been a direct victim of one of these problems.In 2018, the American gymnast denounced that Larry Nassar, former leader of the United States gymnastics team, sexually abused her.

"I am also one of the many survivors who were sexually abused by Larry Nassar," Biles said on a Twitter post with the hashtag #Metoo.

Biles was one of the almost 200 athletes and girls who said they were abused by the once respected doctor, including Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney, part of the American Olympic Gymnia team "Fierce Five" that won the gold in 2012.Many said they were pressed to remain silent by powerful institutions, including USA Gymnastics, the ruling body of that sport in the United States.

Simone Biles of the United States team competes in a balance of a balance during the women's qualification on the second day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.Credit: Laurence Griffiths / Getty Images

Stronger pressure for women

"For too long I have asked myself: 'I was too naive? Was it because of me?'.Now I know the answer to those questions.No, it wasn't my fault.No, I will not carry the guilt of Larry Nassar, use Gymnastics and others, "said Biles in 2018.

In December 2017, Nassar declared himself guilty of federal positions of child pornography and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.Then, in January 2018, he declared himself guilty of seven charges of criminal sexual conduct in Michigan County and was sentenced to between 40 and 175 years in prison.And, in February 2018, he was sentenced between 40 and 125 years in prison after declaring himself guilty of three charges of criminal sexual conduct in Eaton County, Michigan.

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“She is incredibly brave, but people also need to understand that, when you are sexually assaulted hundreds of times, it has consequences and even she was attacked by him in important competitions, including international competitions...Hundreds of times when I was a child, and anyone who thinks that this is easy for her, to think again, "said John Manly, the lawyer who represented Biles and other victims of Nassar, after she retired from the competition.

CNN contacted the USA Gymnastics to obtain a comment but there has been no response.He has previously denied having hid Nassar's behavior and apologized to the victims.

The weight that women like Simone Biles have to load is very large, which generates possible mental health effects.Naomi Osaka, meanwhile, has also had to endure this pressure related to social problems.

The Japanese tennis player began to rule in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, when in the United States Open he used a different cover per party, which made explicit reference to the victims of racial violence in the USA.UU.

However, Osaka had not spoken before about this situation because of the social pressure that she had to be a moderate and focused on her game, she explains.

"It's a bit weird, because I have a lot of accumulated things that I mean, but I'm very afraid.It is supposed to be good and quiet, that I must take care of my image, "says Osaka in the third chapter of his documentary miniseries in Netflix.

This only emphasizes the situation that women live, but also the courage they had athletes such as Biles and Osaka when raising their voice, according to Dra. Ángela Londoño-McConnell, psicóloga, presidenta y cofundadora de AK Counseling & Consulting Inc.

"Sometimes women, unfortunately, have been seen as the weakest genre, who cannot assume certain things.(Therefore), people may be judged much more negatively and much stronger than a man.What we have to remember is the value that these two women and many more had to say: 'I cannot at this time, I am going to retire' from a competition from which they have been training all their lives.That takes a lot of value.I think we have to recognize.Not all people did and that is to admire, because it is something that really was supremely difficult, but they did it because they needed to do so for them, not anyone else, "said Londoño-McConnell in an interview with CNN.

The violence that women reaches communities such as LGBT+.Although in cases such as Carl Nassib (who is the first NFL activity in communicating that it is gay) there were many messages of support in social networks, homophobia, misogyny or transphobia in sports such as American football continues.

"There was a lot of talk about why they are saying this.(It is thought that) they must be strong men, but in football there is no room to be weak, to be vulnerable.So I think they have also received that.In different ways, I think that none of the genres wins when we talk about this in a denigrating way, "said the psychology specialist.

Athletes seek help outside

With all these pressures that can affect mental health, Sergio Díaz, mental high performance athletes coach and founder of The Mind Institute, emphasized the point that a specific entity is necessary that governs mental health issues in sport, because they have had various cases where athletes are those who seek help on their own.

"We have found that it is the athletes who end up looking for the solution," Díaz said in an interview with CNN.

This is an even more prevailing need in Latin America, added the specialist, where sports structures have lower budgets than in developed countries.

"I think it is also a good opportunity to send a message: institutions have to be more aggressive because today they have very light training programs.

"Then, we have athletes that enter depressions, which enter processes already as such of mental illnesses and there is no one to accompany them because in the end nobody is pending of them," Diaz criticized.

Athletes, affected from several flanks

According to Brindisi, mental effects also come because the high -performance athlete competes to a greater demand that 20 or 30 years ago, with increasingly tight calendars.

Brindisi stressed that these two cases of biles and Osaka are also given in sports that are individual, which also entails a possible mental involvement.Although gymnastics are a sport in teams, at the time of participating is the or the athlete alone in its apparatus.With tennis, although there is a double modality, the referent is individual competition.

"That exposure level (in individual sports) is even stronger.Some people can deal with better and other people cannot deal with that.That is why all these symptoms appear that one sees now, but already the context is to be increasingly demanded, it is a little more what is requested, "he said.

This is a point where the tennis player Naomi Osaka agrees and in which he emphasizes.

"No one knows everything we sacrifice to be good (...).I think you need a lot of mental strength to play tennis because it is an individual sport.In a way, you are alone, "says Osaka in the first chapter of her documentary in Netflix.

Monitoring of alert signs and clinical training

Dra.Ángela Londoño said that athletes are seen as "superheroes", when in reality they are people like everyone else.

"All athletes, in the studies that have been done, show that they have the same level of anxiety, depression, exhaustion, that people in general.They, as we say, are not superheroes, we treat them as superheroes, but they are human too, "he said.

Therefore, he recommended that athletes must carry out both to maintain high performance and to raise it, but this from the emotional and psychological point of view.

"Then these strategies go to the emotional and psychological part of everyday life, how to handle stress, how to know how to recognize when they are anxious, depressive,".

Brindisi, on the other hand, said that it is very important that athletes have access to a sports psychologist, but this always has to be accompanied by the clinical part.

"There is a lot of sporting psychologists, but the issue is that the sports psychologist who works also has clinical training.What does this mean?That there may be when it is not only a problem of attention and concentration, but there is a symptom of a person who is suffering.Yes (the psychologist) cannot treat that symptom, who can make a derivation to another professional who can treat it ".

There may be cases in which the psychologist, not to detect that it is a clinical problem, puts more pressure on the athlete and ends up worsening the situation.

"If the sports psychologist does not realize and begins to put more pressure, as' we are going to concentrate more, we will work more," he ends up exploiting, "said toast.

Some of the symptoms referred to toast.

"Someone who usually enjoys this, but you see that he no longer wants to train, so something is happening," he added.

What to do about this situation?

Mental coach Sergio Díaz said that, since we are little, we are not taught to be people, so there should be a mental health training from the first years of education.

"It is a reality that can be promoted, that can be taught (mental health).As well as children at school we teach them mathematics, I think it is also validHow to handle your emotions: what is an emotion, what is a mood, how to recover calm at a time of crisis, how to have patience, how to create and develop resilience.

"But we have to incorporate these practices and these pedagogical models within the academic curriculums, institutions and, of course, in sport," said Díaz.

He also pointed out that, to promote this issue in sport, three factors about health should be considered as an integral issue.

"For me to have a 360 degree health of my life, I need to train the three bodies that make up the human being: the physical body (exercise, food, sleep), the mental body (feed the mind with knowledge to exercise it, take care of relationshipspersonal) and the spiritual body (learn from the values and virtues of human beings, regardless of who is treated, respect, tolerance, patience, prudence, commitment, discipline), "Diaz said.

"Champion mentality"

This is the name that receives the second chapter of the Osaka documentary, which came out on July 16 of this year in Netflix, and gives us an indicative of the constant pressure with which the tennis player lives.

"I still have no champion mentality, and that is something indispensable to be competitive even if you are not playing 100%.I have always wanted to be like that, but I still have a lot to learn, "said Naomi Osaka at a press conference (which is included in this documentary chapter) after losing in the third round of the Australian Open at the beginning of 2020.

On this and all other factors that lead to mental health problems, Christina Balinotti, a specialist in family psychology, said that coaches have psychological training to address alert signals.

"The coach that trains the athlete physically must have psychological knowledge, should know when to stop, when not to demand too much, when the person needs psychological help and then derive it to the athlete psychologist," Balinotti recommended in an interview with CNN.

The self -examination in athletes who are in high performance as Osaka tends to be greater and, therefore, the person is more exposed than others to mental health problems, according to the specialist.

"A person who is at that level of work, in that demand, is a person who is more vulnerable than any other, because he is exposed to what everyone will say, to the judgment of the people, to the judgment of his parents, his family andof themselves with the self -examination imposed ".

Derived from this, Balinotti added, psychological disorders can be presented, where the most common are those of anxiety: phobias and panic attacks, for example.

"These anxiety disorders could be exacerbated in disorder or mental illness.There we put a higher emphasis, "he said.

Within the framework of the entire situation of mental health in sport, the psychologist stressed that both Osaka and Biles are the "initial kick" of this movement.

"But then you have to do a whole pedagogy.The awareness of everyone in the community comes.There must be a social opening to the dialogue of these issues, "he said.

Osaka feels uncomfortable as the flag bearer of this problem, but it is a fact that embraces this position and that, as specialists coincide, is time to talk about the problem.

"I feel uncomfortable as the spokeswoman or the face of the mental health of athletes, since it is still something new to me and I don't have all the answers.I hope people feel identified and understand that it is fine not being well, and that it is good to talk about it, "he wrote this month in Time magazine.

And his documentary ends with the following sentence: "Honestly, tennis is not necessary at all.It is what I do and I love it, but there are more important things in the world ".

With information from Jill Martin, Emanuella Grinberg, César López, Ben Church and George Ramsey.