Even When They Win, Olympians Can Struggle After the Games Are Over

Before runner Alexi Pappas competed at the Rio Olympics, she had never heard of the post-Olympic blues. “This was 2016, and so it wasn’t very common for people to be open about their mental health,” she says. In retrospect, she says she’d seen her teammates struggle mentally after previous Olympics, but she never connected the dots.

So when Pappas made the Greek team to compete in the 10,000 meters, she only focused on the race. In fact, “I was instructed not to think about the moment after,” she says. And she didn’t think she’d need to. “Growing up, I was like, ‘If I could be an Olympian, I will be happy forever,'” she says.

Yet despite a successful race, in which she set a national record, she started to struggle shortly after she crossed the finish line. “I had a situational depression, which is when a series of things happen that make you feel like you just fell off a cliff,” she says. Included in that “series of things” were: contract negotiations, moving to a new city, and changing coaches. Meanwhile, Pappas had continued running 120 miles a week, rather than taking time after the Games to recover physically. And on top of all that, she was only sleeping one hour a night. Thoughts of doom and panic plagued her the other 23 hours.

Experts Featured in This Article

Alexi Pappas is a Greek-American runner who competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics. She’s also a filmmaker, writer, and actor.

Brenley Shapiro, MSW is a sports psychologist and mental performance coach.

After the Olympics, Athletes’ Mental Health Suffers

Pappas’ experience is unfortunately common among Olympians, who often struggle mentally and emotionally after the competition is over. Sports psychologist and mental performance coach Brenley Shapiro, MSW, points out that these elite athletes spend years building up to the Games. “It’s this culmination, this emotional high to actually be there after all of these years of time, sacrifice, commitment that they put in,” she says. “You go from this extreme dopamine rush, then it’s this significant drop when it’s all over. And it can be quite a jarring experience to go back to a seemingly normal life with, ‘Hey, what do I do now?'”

Pappas says that as soon as the Olympics finish, fans and the media start asking athletes what they plan to do next. “And you feel like if you don’t know that answer yesterday, you’re behind already,” she says.

Considering all that, it’s normal for athletes to feel lost for a couple weeks or so after the Games end, Shapiro says. In fact, it’s typical for anyone to experience a post-event crash after accomplishing something big that they’ve been working toward for a while, she says. Anyone who spends multiple months training for a marathon or planning for a wedding or a big vacation might find it leads to a low after it’s all over. Even the holidays can spark a post-high letdown. Pappas compares it to climbing a mountain – once you hit the peak, the descent afterward is inevitable.

How to Cope With the Post-Olympic Blues

It might be difficult to avoid some sort of let-down after a big event, especially one as major as the Olympics. But there are steps anyone – Olympic athletes included – can take to manage that low period. For one: know it’s coming, and prepare for it. Shapiro suggests anyone gearing up for a big event make a proactive game plan for the day after, specifically.

“It helps so much with that transition because you’re not just left with this dump of feeling, but you know what you’re going to do,” she says, adding that even if the plan is simply to rest and recover, making it intentional feels different than sitting around feeling lost. “You’re recognizing that you’ve put a lot of time, effort, and purpose into what you’ve been doing, and that you deserve this recovery time mentally, physically, spiritually,” Shapiro says. With this mindset, you can still feel like you’re achieving something even if you’re not doing much more than lying on the couch watching Netflix.

Pappas points out that recovery might look different – and have a different timeline – for everyone. It could include traveling, spending time with family, or just taking some space to find a sense of ease. “You’re sort of letting go of squeezing a marshmallow and letting it reinflate,” she says.

Shapiro also recommends talking through your feelings honestly. Remember, it’s okay to feel sad that it’s all over. You could reach out to a therapist, or you could just chat with an emotionally supportive friend who gets it or a peer who’s gone through the same thing.

Pappas, for one, invites any Olympian struggling with this to reach out to her at dearalexipappas@gmail.com – she will be in Paris as a mentor to athletes as part of the International Olympic Committee. “I really mean it,” she says, noting that when she was going through her own post-Olympic blues, “I wish I could have emailed someone.”

Intead, Pappas ended up suffering for several months until her dad convinced her to get help. Things started to turn around after she moved home to Eugene, Oregon, and began seeing a therapist three times a week. “He taught me that the brain is a body part and it can get injured and heal just like any body part,” she says.

Now, she makes time to deliberately decompress after any major event so that she can keep going after big goals. “The peak itself is not the problem. The peaks are beautiful,” Pappas says. “The peaks allow us to explore the outermost limits of ourselves mentally and physically. But decompression is a real important companion to the peak.”

Jennifer Heimlich is a writer and editor with more than 15 years of experience in fitness and wellness journalism. She previously worked as the senior fitness editor for Well+Good and the editor in chief of Dance Magazine. A UESCA-certified running coach, she’s written about running and fitness for publications like Shape, GQ, Runner’s World, and The Atlantic.