Psychologist analyzes withdrawal: “Biles’ system is completely overloaded”

Simone Biles pulls the emergency brake. The American gymnastics star not only breaks off the team competition at the Olympic Games because of “mental problems”, but is now also withdrawing from the all-around individual. In an interview, the sports psychologist Professor Markus Raab from the Sport University Cologne explains how mental overload can occur and what possibilities there are for Biles to find his way back to mental stability in these games.

ntv.de: Mr. Raab, with Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, two athletes at these Olympic Games revealed how much they suffer from enormous pressure of expectations. While Biles is talking about “mental problems”, Osaka made her depression public a few months ago. Can the cases of the two athletes be compared?

Professor Markus Raab: That is a very difficult topic and cannot be decided by remote diagnosis. In psychology, we differentiate between current stress in a situation, between burnout, i.e. long-term symptoms that also affect sleep, and the clinically relevant depression, which contains significantly longer-term low moods. Of the statements made by Naomi Osaka, for example, there were also social fears when it comes to attending press conferences, for example. It is not uncommon for depression to have several partial illnesses reported from a psychological point of view.

Professor Markus Raab heads the performance psychology department at the German Sport University in Cologne.

(Photo: Raab)

At Simone Biles, on the other hand, it is still too early to say how the high expectations and the fact that she is currently unable to achieve her top performance will affect her. In any case, it is clear that they will have an impact on your self-esteem and your safety while doing gymnastics. This, in turn, can lead to fear of injury. She has already made that an issue herself. But all of this is completely different from the symptoms that threaten depression.

Can the pressure that these two athletes and many other athletes feel in front of them actually be measured?

Yes, on the one hand we have the athletes’ self-reports, but we can also measure this physiologically, for example the level of the stress hormone cortisol rises sharply when the pressure is high.

When it comes to top athletes, people often talk about mentality monsters. How can it happen that this outstanding strength is lost, even collapsed, under the immense pressure?

Simone Biles is under immense pressure of expectation after her four gold medals at the previous games in Rio. She had to endure it for a year longer because the games were rescheduled. That is far from helpful. Then there is the pandemic. In preparation, there were hardly any opportunities to support her in the competition routines. And with Simone Biles you have to take into account that there is both a family and a sporting background. It’s about the mother, who was overwhelmed with the care of the children, and the reports about the sexual abuse of the sportswoman by the American team doctor. Of course, this makes the case even more dramatic for the various influencing factors.

Perhaps you can give a concrete description of how Biles’ mental problems came about and why it is so difficult to prepare for something like this?

Unfortunately, such moments cannot be foreseen. This stress can only be experienced at that moment. We cannot simulate such an Olympic stressful situation in a form of training. When suddenly the great pressure from an association, from an entire nation, meets a situation for which one is actually well prepared, but in which one then has to find out that the self-conception developed by oneself is not as strong as expected, then we will achieve the limit where preparation and training no longer help to withstand this pressure. This can then happen through the effects of the pandemic, through the postponement of the games or through an initial failed exercise. Or as a combination of all of these things. Suddenly all the routines that are so important for mental strength break away in the athlete. We can see that right now with Osaka and Biles, when the system is suddenly overloaded. We sports psychologists can no longer correct something like this with a few fire-fighting activities; this has to be systematically developed and trained.

The public admission of mental problems is a great moment of strength, not failure. But can an athlete like Biles interpret it that way? Especially when it comes to such an important competition as the Olympic Games?

In her interviews she reflected on herself that the body can perform, but the mental situation means that she is afraid of injuries, that she cannot help the team, so the answer is: yes, she can.

As a sports psychologist, how do you rate the public admissions?

From my point of view, these are screams that psychology must intervene. That’s why I think it’s right that she doesn’t go back to the individual competition immediately on Thursday. It is now an important task for the sports psychologists on site to assess very precisely whether there is actually a risk of injury or long-term psychological consequences if they continue in the device finals next week.

Simone Biles had initially said that they were looking forward to a day of rest for their heads. Can it actually be possible to get rid of “mental problems” in such a short time?

If there are serious causes for your mental problems, the answer is: no! But if it is “just” a matter of overloading, isolating the athlete and taking appropriate recovery measures, then something like this can actually work in one day. We have seen this in other sports too. Think, for example, of the case of Christian Eriksen at the European Football Championship. But after such a short time, the same performance as before cannot usually be expected. The trainers and psychologists, I repeat myself, have to assess very precisely how high the risk of long-term consequences is, both physically and mentally.

What can an athlete like Simone Biles do to regain her mental stability in such an important, unique competition as the Olympic Games? Do you want to train in the hall?

No, she has to get out of this situation completely today. It has to rebuild itself with the help of the psychologists. The fact that she canceled the all-around individual is an indicator that it is not so easy to regulate. The main thing now is to generate the optimal area of ​​functioning for them. So regulate the tension up and down, depending on the current state.

Does this also include a break in social networks, where athletes are almost always active? Or to put it bluntly: is social media a danger for athletes in such a situation?

The answer to the last question is yes. It can be a danger when we see how many shitstorms there are. But social media always offers the opportunity to address certain taboo topics. Osaka has already done that by admitting its social fears. So social media can also help you say certain things. In this way, for example, an acceptance can be created for the fact that psychological problems are no longer understood as failure and personal defeat of the athletes. It can help to relieve the pressure so that the athletes affected can continue to do the sport they love so much with a little stress and emotion regulation.

Tobias Nordmann spoke to Markus Raab

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