Ian Thorpe, one of the greatest swimmers, wrote in hia autobiography that he has been depressed but he had never spoken openly about it. ”Not even my family is aware that I’ve spent a lot of my life battling what I can only describe as a crippling depression”. The 30-year-old said he had striven to be perfect and had wanted to keep what he felt was a “character flaw” from his family. After the Sydney Olympics and while training for Athens, Thorpe decided to get answers and had a “clandestine visit” to a doctor, where he got “some help”, including medication. ”I used alcohol as a means to rid my head of terrible thoughts, as a way of managing my moods – but I did it behind closed doors, where many depressed people choose to fight their demons before they realise they can’t do it without help”. ”There were numerous occasions, particularly between 2002 and 2004 as I trained to defend my Olympic titles in Athens, that I abused myself this way – always alone and in a mist of disgrace.”
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We live in the period in which the depression is the most common mental disorder. Depression stimulated by the perception of not more control life and the belief that no one can help us. The champions also suffer of it and not only people who feel desperate because they live their lives as a failure or a failed attempt to realize their dreams. The champions may become trapped as they are in search of perfection that can never be reached and the need to repeat their successes, in an environment that considers them heroes only if they continue to win, otherwise as easily they become something to be deleted. The transience of success, despite the fame and the money, can destroy lives if those who live in this condition do not find the ways to get out alive and happy. Not everyone wants to learn, not everyone lives in an environment that warns and support them, and so they become depressed. Also because if ever they tried to speak, they will find many friends ready to tell, that they had everything and cannot complain.
Credo che Thorpe e Woods vadano seguiti e ammirati per ciò che fanno. Non parlo dei risultati sportivi ma della volontà di volere provare a se stessi che si può, coa? Il primo che dopo essersi ritirato si può nuovamente raggiungere altissimi livelli e il secondo che non finito, nonostante sia intorno alla 50° nel ranking. E’ possibile che vi siano anche risvolti economici alla base di quetse scelte, ma non sono di certo sufficienti a mettere nuovamente la propria faccia, sapendo di rischiare di non farcela. Questo per me è il punto fondamentale, l’accettazione del rischio, probabilmente questa è anche la caratteristica dei fuoriclasse, accettare gli errori e le disfatte ma essere lì con tutto se stessi nel volerci riuscire. Noi lo faremmo?
