Stefano Massari, Matteo Berrettini’s mental coach, wrote an interesting article on the topic of competitive and social pressure experienced by world-class sports stars. He wrote that: “The main job is to try to make success go hand in hand with happiness. To avoid stories like those of André Agassi, who had become the strongest tennis player and the saddest person in the world. The risk of getting lost behind results and success is very high.” He recalls that many have forfeited from the “demons in the head” of gymnast Simone Biles at the Olympics or tennis player Naomi Osaka’s psychological breakdown in front of the pressures of an audience all for her. But also the dark moment of Matteo Berrettini, in tears after so many physical injuries and a comeback with many defeats and withdrawals on the tennis courts, or the difficult comeback of Marcell Jacobs, who after historic Olympic golds in the 100 meters and the 4×100 relay has competed little and often with lackluster performances.
By now it is a recurring theme that can no longer be ignored. Absolute level sport has become entertainment and its stars rock stars, often unprepared to play this new role. This sport is bad for the mental health of athletes; it pushes them to consider that the only thing that matters is winning, that one must remain indifferent to defeats, that one must not show in public and on social media one’s limitations in knowing how to live this role of all-around winner. Let us make it clear that this kind of person that the sport requires and that the public admires does not exist, and on social media those who hate them are many and always ready to express themselves in a hateful way towards them.
It would be easy to tell these athletes not to think about it but it is not possible when a sports career does not last a lifetime, beyond the age of 40 one can continue to be a rock star, certainly not a world-class athlete. Moreover, these athletes and female athletes have shown an exceptional ability to be able to turn their passion as boys and girls into a job that has taken them, through their efforts, to the absolute top.
What they have achieved in sport, together also with their staff and often, but not always, family, represents the highest level of self-actualization to which a human being can aspire. At the same time, it is also the cause of the psychological pain they experience. Our work with them as psychologists is to teach them to park these debilitating psychological states in a deep part of their minds, to develop their inner strength in a superior way, and to accept that the environment in which they live also includes these negative stimuli that do not depend on their performance but on how the sport has developed.
However, it will not be easy.
