When I wrote about watching Athlete A last week, I mentioned the fact that the win-at-all-costs mentality of USA gymnastics blinded the organization to the fact that girls were being abused right under their noses, and played a role in their lack of response to allegations. They had one guiding quest, winning gold medals, and anything else was not to be focused on.
As more news has come out about physical and verbal abuse in addition to sexual abuse in multiple sports across multiple countries, it’s become clear that being solely focused on winning at the expense of everything else, is doing quite a bit of harm.
Now, we have the new film “The Weight of Gold”, narrated by Michael Phelps, about the mental health damage that comes with being an elite Olympic athlete. I haven’t seen it myself yet, but I caught this article about it and thought this was an insightful look at the issue: