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[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
male announcer: The following is a presentation
of HBO Sports.
[haunting music]
♪ ♪
- As the novel coronavirus continues to spread worldwide
from its starting point in Wuhan, China...
- 400,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 across the globe.
- Another tragic milestone today:
the most reported coronavirus deaths
in a single day...
- Closing almost all businesses...
- Shows a record-shattering
6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits...
- More of the world's biggest sporting contests
canceled or postponed.
- Tokyo 2020 organizers
and the International Olympic Committee
bowing to global pressure. - The prime minister announced
the 2020 Summer Olympic Games
will be postponed until summer 2021.
♪ ♪
- The summer of 2020 was supposed to be the summer
of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games...
[fireworks popping]
More than 15,000 athletes
from over 200 countries coming together,
all of them eager to realize the dreams
they had chased since they were kids.
♪ ♪
The venues were built.
The tickets were sold.
The athletes were ready.
And then...
all of our lives were turned upside down,
and the Olympics were postponed
for the first time ever.
♪ ♪
Now, the Games getting delayed pales in comparison
to the tragedies that COVID-19 would cause
all over the world,
but the impact wasn't just on people's physical health.
It was also dangerous for our mental health.
Fear, uncertainty, disruption,
isolation:
all of that was very real for millions of people.
♪ ♪
Mental health was something
I had been thinking about a lot
long before the virus hit.
♪ ♪
With the 2020 Games approaching,
the first Olympics I wouldn't be a part of
since I was 11 years old,
I found myself looking back on the highs and lows
and how close I came to losing it all.
And then when the Games were postponed,
what I thought about was the mental health
of all the athletes who had worked so hard
and now had to pick up the pieces
with everything changed.
♪ ♪
We should've all been watching the Olympics together
in the summer of 2020,
but instead, I'd like to tell you
about our journeys to the dream
and how much more there can be to all of our stories,
there and back.
♪ ♪
[crowd cheering]
♪ ♪
- You broke more than 25 national age group records.
You got the world championship coming up.
What more do you want to accomplish?
- I guess my long-term goal is
to win the gold medal in Athens
and go in more than one event.
So I mean, I have a lot of goals,
but I think that I just want to take it day by day.
When you're an Olympian,
you like to think that your story
is different from all of the others,
but really...
- Put your hands together for Jeremy Bloom!
- They all pretty much start the same.
- I want to go to the Olympics
and win a gold medal in skiing.
- My goal is to, like, go to the Olympics,
be on the Olympic team.
- And the goal that I wanted to reach
was to be at the Olympics
and really compete with all the great skaters.
- At some point or another,
all of us get this idea in our heads:
we can make it to the Olympics.
- A good run!
- And everything just goes from there.
- I'd always watch the Olympics with my parents,
like, "Wow, this is the highest level there is."
That's how my mom explained it to me.
My parents, my mom and my dad, had sat me down.
They're like, "This is-- it doesn't get
"any higher than this.
"This is the Olympics. That's it.
"These athletes have worked their entire lives
"for this moment,
"and that's why they go to the greatest lengths
to try and win."
I just remember being awestruck by that.
- Growing up in a single-parent household
and having the type of energy that I did,
whether you call it ADHD,
you call it, you know, just raw energy
that can't be tapped in any capacity,
the only thing that my dad saw
that could potentially redirect my energy
into something positive was sport,
and he was right.
- Well, I was born and raised in Park City, Utah,
pretty much the Adventure Town, USA.
I started skiing when I was two years old,
which was pretty awesome.
I have pictures of it.
I don't remember my first time skiing,
but winter sports has always been kind of my thing.
- I started skating when I was eight.
We get on the ice,
and I just kind of love it right away.
I didn't perceive myself as being, like,
amazingly talented,
but I was aware that I was better
than, like, some of the other kids,
and it just really rapidly snowballed from there.
♪ ♪
- He's called a typical 15-year-old teenager
by his coach, except for one small detail:
Michael Phelps is one of the fastest swimmers
in the world.
- None of us had normal childhoods per se.
- 26-0-0.
Boy, that first lap is really good.
- Nobody who is going to expend that kind of effort
to achieve that kind of goal
is going to be just like everybody else.
- I certainly think this is just the beginning.
He's certainly not as strong as he's gonna get,
and we have limited his training,
so it's not even near where he's gonna be.
- Now, there are good sides to that,
and there are bad sides to that.
For me, I don't want to say
I would've done anything differently
if I could do it all over again.
I was competitive. I was hungry.
I loved it. I chose it.
But the truth was that my focus
got incredibly narrow and intense really quickly,
which would have ramifications later in life...
- Arms forward. Good, forward.
- Even if it wasn't possible to realize that at the time.
- I don't think that's an excuse
for not learning a skill.
- I didn't fucking say it was.
- Go ahead, put that on the movie.
- Go ahead! - Put your attitude
of excellence right on there.
- One... - You think and you operate
as if everything revolves around this sole focus,
and that sole focus is the Olympics.
Everything else is secondary,
so your relationships, your school,
your family, your other friends,
everything that's not catered
to you performing at the highest level in sport,
it's a nonstarter conversation.
- 13-year-old Sasha Cohen.
- For me, it wasn't a sacrifice.
Everything else in life was an obstacle
that I wanted to push aside.
I didn't want to spend time with friends.
I didn't want to go to school.
I wanted to do everything I could
to be the best skater I could.
- It's more of, like, a lifestyle.
It's how I lived.
Any little step I could take,
anything to get the edge or advantage
over my competitors and to win.
My world was based on that for sure.
- I went five or six years straight,
365 days a year.
The difference between great and good:
I think the greats do things when they don't always want to,
and I think that's what makes them great.
I looked up to Jordan forever.
That guy probably didn't want to play basketball every day.
He's the GOAT.
Peyton, he didn't have to study film
for thousands and thousands of hours.
He did it because he wanted to be great.
- Up! Good.
- When I graduated high school, I remember working out
like crazy
because I wanted to be an athlete.
Everyone's like, "Oh, my gosh, you work out so much,"
and I was like, "It's nothing compared to the Olympians."
[gentle music]
When I first got into skeleton,
I ended up on my own at 16,
being offered a free place to live, food,
and a potential scholarship
for whatever school I could try to get to.
Was not really a hard choice--
go to the Olympics or go to college--
and I basically chose sport over academics.
I started winning everything.
It was addicting. It was fun.
I just got sucked in.
- I didn't develop outside interests.
I had a very singular focus on my sport
and on figure skating.
It was like a compulsion. It was necessary.
- Most of my career,
I was driven purely by a fear of failure,
so, unlike a lot of athletes
who are driven by "I want to win,
I want to be the champion,"
I was driven purely
that I felt that I was inadequate.
I wasn't the best guy on the ice.
I wasn't the guy who was the most talented genetically,
physically gifted.
I could probably say I was the hardest worker,
and I did the most amount of time in the sport,
because of my obsession with "it wasn't good enough."
Every day wasn't good enough.
For 15 years, I lived that life.
It was like, "I have to be here,
"because there's someone else on the other side of the world
"who's younger than me, that's better than me,
"that just overall is superior to me
"in every single capacity,
so I have to find a way to win."
[orchestral music]
[announcers speaking in native language]
- After all that time you put in--
the early mornings,
the countless laps in the pool or around the track
or rink or whatever--
when you finally go to an Olympics,
I think the only word that you can use
to describe it
is "overwhelming."
[dramatic music]
You've basically been training your whole life
for this one moment,
and you know it's not coming around again
for another four years, if ever.
♪ ♪
That's absolutely all in your head.
And then throw in the fact that it's all unfolding
in front of the entire world?
Like I said, overwhelming.
♪ ♪
- First Olympics, I was extremely nervous.
It met my expectations in the fact
that I knew it was the biggest stage
that I would perform in my life,
and just those overwhelming emotions
and just completely was an amazing experience.
You felt like everything was special,
and you're trying to take it all in.
As a track and field athlete, I had no clue if I'd ever make
another Olympic team.
Most track and field athletes only make one team,
so I just wanted to make the most of the experience.
[cheers and applause]
- My first Olympics,
I was 19 and the number one ranked skier in the world,
and, you know, "Sports Illustrated"
picked me to win the Olympic gold,
and I was beyond nervous.
I mean, it was paralyzing.
[crowd chanting "USA!"]
- It's a whirlwind.
It's nothing like any competition
I'd ever been to before.
It was inspiring; it was amazing
to sit with all these other athletes
around the world and, like, eat your breakfast.
I mean, it was just like this glow,
this sort of vibe while you were there.
♪ ♪
- It completely blew my mind.
Flags from every country.
There was so much excitement and buzz.
It was on no other level
that I can compare to anything in my life.
♪ ♪
You get on an Olympic venue bus,
and you go to the arena to compete,
and you have this kind of epiphany
that, when you get back on this bus again tonight,
like, your fate will have been sealed.
♪ ♪
Something will be written into history
that can never be unwritten or rewritten.
And it's just a bus ride,
but it's like, the enormity of it is huge.
- It's all they've done
for the past ten years, and now,
for the next 40 seconds of our human lives,
this moment will dictate
whether they have a gold...
or not.
- Phelps, the greatest of all time, iconic figure,
writes his way into the history books
yet again.
- So then it's over.
- Steve Holcomb has raced for gold!
- And however it ends...
- There will be no medals of any color for Jeremy Bloom.
- The bigger point is that it's over,
everything you've worked for in the rearview mirror,
and reckoning with that
is something that unites all Olympians,
whether you ended up on top of the podium...
or in total disbelief.
[tense orchestral music playing]
- Oh, that's a foul.
- I fell twice in the first 30 seconds
of my long program.
[melancholy music]
- And another step out.
- I was shell-shocked. I was devastated.
I was just, like, stunned.
♪ ♪
And not only are you having all these feelings,
but you are having all these feelings
while the entire world is singularly focused on you.
[cheers and applause]
And you hear with every fall just a...
[exhaling heavily] "Oh,"
or, like, just, like, the hush.
♪ ♪
You already have all those feelings,
and then this, like--
the most dramatic sound effects
that are, like, laid down, the soundtrack
to this, like, devastating 30 seconds of your life.
♪ ♪
This was my Olympics, you know.
♪ ♪
It was not the performance I wanted to give,
but I ended up with a silver medal.
It's very hard to know what you're capable of,
and sometimes circumstances in life happen,
and you have to do the best you can,
and sometimes timing sucks, right?
♪ ♪
- Unless you're an Olympic athlete,
it's difficult to understand,
when you fail at the Olympics,
what a big deal that is.
From an outside perspective, you could say, "Oh, big deal.
"You're an Olympian.
Like, people have bigger problems,"
and that is true,
but for Olympians,
that's your life.
That's really what defines you.
♪ ♪
- In that 2002 Olympic 500-meter final
in men's long track,
the difference between gold medal,
recognized, celebrated, and fourth place
is this difference.
Four guys just went by in that time frame,
and you worked an entire lifetime for that.
The difference is,
the guy who won, we celebrate; we look to; we love.
The guy in fourth, you never hear from that person.
He disappears. He dissipates.
He becomes a civilian.
It's gold and then what?
[crowd groaning]
- So with all the hype surrounding Bode Miller
coming in here to possibly medal
in all five events,
he will not have a medal at all.
- Mainstream media,
especially in America but really everywhere,
they love that feeling of building somebody up
because that gives them control over the situation.
You know, they pump them up, pump up expectations,
and then it's good news, it's good content
if they can chop their legs out from under them
and see a hero come crashing down.
It's good for everybody's ego.
Everybody likes to read about that stuff.
- This just in, ladies and gentlemen:
Bode Miller has just tested negative
for gold medals.
[laughter] [rimshot]
- And then to build them back up,
then you have this underdog,
the hero reborn.
There's just a lot of natural flow to that pattern.
- Bode Miller, everybody!
[cheers and applause]
- I've gone through it enough times
to know what it looks like from the inside.
- Check that out.
[cheers and applause]
- In '05 when I won the overall,
I was the golden boy,
and even though I was rebellious
and they knew my patterns, they knew all my stuff--
wasn't like I wasn't having fun or partying
or going out-- they sort of covered it up
and made it so they could refine
the picture of the hero on the top,
and then they were setting it up
so that if I did well, they'd have something else
in the Olympics, and instead,
I didn't do as well as I could've,
and they cut the legs out.
- Bode Miller is 0 for 5.
- Failing to do well in races always sucks.
I mean, it was my life,
and I had a huge opportunity there,
and, you know, that just is annoying
from a personal standpoint.
I think every athlete would relate to that.
♪ ♪
- I was running the best races of my life,
the best times of my life.
[starting gun fires] And I hit one hurdle,
and it cost me the Olympic gold medal.
- Lolo Jones has the lead,
but she hit the hurdle.
She hit hurdle number nine,
the next-to-last hurdle.
Lolo Jones hit the hurdle
and did not get a medal.
- In my life,
I've probably hit a hurdle three times.
I'm talking about training, races, practices.
And now I'm known as a girl who hits hurdles.
- She looked to have the gold in her pocket.
- I got ripped across the media,
like, "Oh, she had all these sponsors.
How could she not medal?"
Like, "She's such a freaking flop."
It was so overwhelming,
and I had no one to talk to.
I would be washing dishes,
like, months later, and I'd think about it,
and I'd literally be frozen,
like, "What could I have done differently?"
I'd be walking in the grocery store,
day's going fine, and then someone would come up to me:
"Oh, I feel so bad for what happened."
- It was painful to see my family's reaction to it,
what they had to go through.
I think that's what hurt the most
was seeing my image tarnished in their eyes,
that I shouldn't be allowed back in the country,
that I was, you know,
the most disgraceful Olympic athlete ever
in the history of the world. [laughs]
♪ ♪
Your Q rating is where they tell 1,000 people your name.
Do they recognize the name?
Do they have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion
of your brand or your name?
My Q rating was lower than Mike Tyson, who had...
- What happened here? - Bit off Holyfield's ear
or O.J. Simpson, who at the time
had a double murder and ran.
- Could you imagine?
Like, let's say you get a divorce
and then everywhere you go in public,
someone's like, "Oh, I feel so bad for you.
I heard you got that divorce."
Happened so many times,
and I had no one to help me through that.
[airplane engine rumbling]
[upbeat march music]
[crowd chanting "Gracie!"]
- It's nice to get home.
The celebration kind of continues.
[cheers and applause]
People are so happy. They're so proud.
[cheers and applause]
They show their support.
- The fans lined York Road for hours,
ready to get an up-close look
at their hometown heroes.
- He's adorable! - Look at the face.
- I want to be just like him.
- And then it kind of dies down.
[car horns honking]
Then you basically get in that part
where you're either like,
"Am I gonna put myself through this
"for four more years,
or am I gonna find something else to do?"
[somber music]
And we're lost.
I think that's where a lot of it really comes from
is, we're just so lost, 'cause we spent four years
grinding for that one moment,
and now we don't know what the hell to do.
I think it's probably safe to say
that a good 80%, maybe more,
go through some kind of post-Olympic depression.
♪ ♪
- After the Olympics,
the village doors close,
and then that's kind of it.
♪ ♪
So all the media's gone.
All the exposure's gone.
Before the 2008 Games,
I remember one of the coaches
specifically on the dive team.
This was my first Olympic Games,
something I'd dreamed of since I was seven years old,
and he had said, "Don't be surprised
after the Olympics for the post-Olympic blues."
♪ ♪
I was 19, and I was like,
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I'm better
than that happening."
- After every Olympics, win or lose,
I felt, like, a dramatic emptiness,
just because your whole world is built around this one day
and you're putting so much on it,
so much expectation and pressure
and interviews and,
"What am I gonna do next?"
And you're plotting out this course of your life.
After every Olympics, there's this incredible crash.
♪ ♪
Nothing really matters as much anymore.
Like, "Oh, I guess I can stay up all night,
"'cause we're not competing.
You know, I guess I'll have an extra slice of cheesecake."
♪ ♪
I remember trying to compete after the Olympics, and...
it was awful.
I had no motivation.
Like, well, what does this matter?
Like, what is this compared to the magnitude
of what I had just accomplished?
♪ ♪
Just like anybody, if you travel the world
with a bunch of friends, like, leaving summer camp,
whatever, you come home, and you're like,
"Wow." [sighs]
"Now what?"
Like, it's just, like, quiet,
and then you kind of feel like,
"Well, what did I do wrong?
"Like...what happened? Is it--like...
where did everyone go?" You know?
Like, you're happy to be home,
but it's just this, like, isolated, cut-off feeling.
- Why do you think so many of the athletes get depressed
when they come home from the Olympics?
- I think it's something that all human beings
are susceptible to,
and with athletes, it's even more so, I think,
because we have such a great ability
to hyper-focus.
So if you are incentivized and you're focused on winning
or you're focused on being the best you can
at this one thing
and you're putting all you have into that
without any other balance,
when that ends
and then you're out of the fight-or-flight mode
of, like, "I have to perform, I have to perform,"
you get left wondering, like,
what do you do with your energy?
I feel like we forgot about how human Olympians are
and the needs we need as human beings.
It's not about winning. It's not about performance.
Granted, that would-- that's all great,
but what about our mental health?
What about our families? What about our education?
What about after sport?
And when you've spent all this time
and it ends,
it'd be really hard not to become depressed.
- Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Shaun White!
[upbeat music playing]
- So many things change after an Olympics,
and the better you do,
the more famous you become...
- Sasha, let's see that smile! [reporters clamoring]
- And the more your life changes.
- Your two-time Olympian Lolo Jones.
- And look at me. Beauty.
- But even if you become one of the success stories,
it all comes with a catch.
[crowd clamoring]
[audio distorts]
Because if your whole life was about building up
to one race, one performance,
or one event,
how does that sustain
everything that comes afterwards?
Sure, you can chase it again.
Just go back to the grind for another four years.
But ultimately, that doesn't sustain.
[soft dramatic music]
And eventually-- for me, at least--
there was one question
that hit me like a ton of bricks.
♪ ♪
Who was I outside of the swimming pool?
♪ ♪
- We are Olympic athletes,
and we're not really sure
if we're anything else.
I think the die-hard skating fans
or Olympic fans will always recognize you
if you walk down the street,
you know, even if it's ten years later,
because you were such a big part of their life
and they're such passionate Olympic fans,
but I think, for most of the public,
you know, they've got very busy lives.
They, like, tune in, they're excited,
they cheer, and then they kind of forget, you know?
I'd say one Olympic cycle out from your Olympics,
you're pretty far removed.
[upbeat music]
- I don't think a lot of athletes understand
that there's always a whole line of people
waiting to be the next one.
You know, at the time, they think they're irreplaceable,
that they're breaking records, they're,
you know, making all the money,
they're getting praise from everybody,
and then when they retire, they expect it to really be
like the sport misses them
and like, "Oh, man, like, there they go,"
and in reality, it's like, "Bye,"
and then there's, like-- the new dude
basically rolls in.
I think that, from an ego standpoint,
hurts a lot of athletes' feelings
and hurts their emotional stability.
- It's almost like a conveyor belt of athletes,
that, like, you're doing really well,
you're doing really well, they keep you healthy,
but, like, when you're done, you're off the conveyor belt.
Like, that's--they just have new athletes
from every sport
coming in all the time.
♪ ♪
- When you're a younger athlete,
they love you.
You're the new, fresh face.
They want to promote you.
They want to put you out there.
They want everybody to fall in love with you.
But after you've been to a few Olympics,
you know, you'll see,
it kind of weans out.
- You are in the business of...
finding the latest and the greatest athletes,
extracting the best performance out of them,
and then going back to the trough
to look for the latest and greatest athletes
and doing it over again, time and time again.
- It's so funny, because... [laughs]
The longer you're here,
you just--you're like, "Oh, that's my replacement."
"We got Sydney McLaughlin:
"19 years old, marketable.
"Social media's on fire.
"And, Lolo, that's your exit.
Please go right."
Motherfucker.
[laughter]
♪ ♪
- Think the system is set up for high turnover,
one, and two, the manner in which
the funds and services are distributed
are incentivized.
- Big drive. Nice.
- So if you're a federation that can win medals,
you get funding; if you're not, you get cut,
not just the federation's funding
but also the salaries and the coaching,
so it's hard, I think, for those people, then,
to see the athletes as individuals.
[quick string music]
- Oh! Ooh.
♪ ♪
- The reality of funding for athletes
in this country might surprise you.
Stipends for training are minimal,
and so most Olympic hopefuls just try to stay afloat
while chasing their dream.
Like, for every athlete with a sponsor,
there are hundreds who need to take a second job
just to make ends meet while they train.
♪ ♪
- I grew up watching the '96 Atlanta Olympics,
and I've watched the, you know, gymnastics team,
and you had the track and field athletes
in all this glory.
They're on every cover of every magazine,
and you're thinking,
"They're financially stable. They have to be, right?"
And then fast-forward to my future,
me trying to be an Olympic athlete,
and I'm living off of $7,000 a year.
- The whole thought that going to the Olympics,
and especially if you win a medal,
sets you up for life
is such horseshit.
- Even if you're in a marquee sport
and you do so well,
you have a limited window
to capitalize on
and to pay back training bills,
and, you know, try to earn some money,
but for most athletes, there's no money.
There's no money at all.
- Let's only talk about Olympic athletes
from the United States.
How many golds do you have?
Because if you're silver, you're not making money.
You're bronze, you're not making money.
You didn't medal?
I don't even know your name, pal.
Go back to the end of the line, okay?
Out of the gold medals,
how many of those are actually being concentrated on
by corporate America to be hired
by speaking engagements or sponsorships?
You got such a small amount of people
who are actually making money,
and that moneymaking opportunity
has a life cycle...
Lettuce, tomato, jalapeño peppers.
You gotta try it.
I would say on average,
unless your family is funding you
throughout this process,
which many do,
you are in debt every single year you compete,
even with the amount that you make.
[melancholy music]
- I'm in huge debt.
In the last quad, I had to fund myself.
I had a small stipend,
but it's not sufficient.
Like, $750 a month,
$1,250 a month.
- I've had years where I can make a killing,
and then I've had years where--I mean, bobsled,
my check was $725 for the whole season.
Tell me how I live off of that.
♪ ♪
As an Olympic athlete,
so I've been a hostess at a restaurant.
I was--I worked at Home Depot.
I think it was the most shocking
when I was working at the gym
and I was making smoothies for people
and my track race played...
and I'm literally making somebody a smoothie,
and they're like, "Is that you? Like, why are..."
They couldn't get it.
Like, do you see, like,
any football player go compete
and then they're making smoothies
for people at a gym for $7 an hour?
♪ ♪
- I'll say I've been extremely fortunate
to have a lot of support,
have a lot of sponsors.
If you're on the national team for swimming,
you get $1,700 a month.
That's supposed to get you through...
training expenses, so travel, living expenses,
eating, car--all of the stuff.
It's hard.
I mean, if that's the only thing that you have,
it's almost impossible.
- For me, I think I was most scared after this year
and I didn't make the team
and literally got an email
saying my health insurance was gonna be cut a month later,
and I was like, "Are you kidding me?"
♪ ♪
- When your financial security is so closely linked
to your success,
the pressure to perform adds up.
That pressure is just something else
that can take a toll on your mental health.
- USA bobsled and the U.S. Olympic Committee
came to me, and it was like,
"Hey, look, you've never actually won
"any sort of medal in bobsledding yet.
"You're USA-1; you're our top driver
"going into this next season.
"We really need you to do well.
If not, like, we just can't support you."
All of a sudden now the entire weight of...
the program is on my shoulders.
I'd better do well.
- Katie Uhlaender from the United States,
24 years old,
out of Breckenridge, Colorado, the two-time...
- 2008, when my father was diagnosed with cancer
and I went on tour--
which for skeleton, when we go on tour,
it's six months.
You are on the road from October until April.
My dad understood, and he told me to go compete
while he was sick.
But I got these emails from my mom
saying he was not doing well;
like, I needed to come home.
I, like, turned to my coach every time, and I said,
"I think I might need to go home,"
and he said, "We can't."
And I said, "Why?"
And he goes, "'Cause you're the only one we have.
We need you to make-- to get medals."
- Here she comes,
rocketing into 12th.
- So the first time,
I kind of, like, didn't respond,
but then when I got the second email
from my mom saying he wasn't gonna make it...
[sniffles] I asked again.
[breathing raggedly]
♪ ♪
And he gave me the same answer.
♪ ♪
[announcers commenting indistinctly]
And...it's really difficult in that situation,
'cause I love the sport, my father understood,
but I wanted to go home,
and it was just becoming so difficult
to try to convince myself and them
that I wanted to go,
but...when he--he did pass away while I was competing,
and...
I don't think that I ever got over that.
[somber music]
- In my case,
there were a lot of warning signs
that I couldn't handle the changes in my life
after my success at the Olympics.
♪ ♪
I definitely made some bad decisions.
- Just a few months after winning Olympic gold,
Michael Phelps was busted for drunk driving.
♪ ♪
- And then rock bottom came in 2014,
and that put everything that had come before
into perspective.
♪ ♪
[siren wailing]
- 56th Street? - Affirmative, 56th.
- Michael Phelps,
the most decorated Olympian of all time,
has been arrested again for DUI.
[uneasy music]
- I get pulled over, go home that night.
I mean, I'm just a wreck, a wreck.
Just sitting there in that room,
didn't leave,
didn't drink water, didn't drink anything,
didn't eat anything,
just sat in my room, basically, curled up,
and cried.
♪ ♪
I was like, "Well, this is everything coming to an end
in front of my eyes."
♪ ♪
And that's where I was just like,
"Why don't I just end it all?"
♪ ♪
In the end, I was fortunate
to have some great people around me
and the resources to get real help.
I checked in to a treatment center,
turned my cell phone off,
and spent the next 45 days rebuilding myself
from the ground up.
♪ ♪
And then when I came back
and found myself in a much better place,
there was this other realization, too,
that I wasn't the only Olympian
who felt the way I did.
♪ ♪
- Post-2008, I was so broken-down
that I would be driving in my car
and I would just be like, "I just hope a truck hits me.
"I just hope, like, a truck hits me and wipes me out
and they don't get hurt but I do, like, that I'm done."
I just would want to be gone.
I would fight suicidal thoughts.
I would fight sitting in my car,
just closing the garage doors with the car on.
- Depression is--once it kind of starts going,
it just puts you into a spiral,
and you just start getting deeper and deeper into it
and just end up doing crazy things.
♪ ♪
- I was like, "Why? What's the point, man?
"What's the point of going to the Olympic Games,
"what's the point of sacrificing
"and training all of these hours
if this is what I have to show for it?"
That point, I remember, like,
how do I just make this painless, quick,
and end my life?
♪ ♪
Came to a couple different plans,
and I don't think I ever got to the point
where I felt confident enough
to act out a suicide, but...
Like, hanging myself? No.
Shooting myself?
No idea how to get a gun.
And my best option was driving so fast,
smoking myself on a telephone pole.
I won't feel a thing.
But it's gonna be easier for me to be done
with this life.
♪ ♪
- May 2017 is when
I really started thinking about, like, ending my life
because it was almost unbearable.
♪ ♪
I had a good day if I got out of bed
before 11:00 or noon,
I wash my face, I brush my hair,
I brush my teeth,
and, like, I left my apartment.
I was like, "I don't know what's on the other side,
"but I think that that would probably be better
than whatever I'm living right now."
♪ ♪
The only reason I didn't kill myself
is because my twin sister, Carly.
There's no way that I would just leave her like that.
I was stuck in that weird place
between not necessarily wanting to die
but, like, I couldn't go on as I was going
because I really just wanted to live again
and, like, feel good things
and, like, see the world again
and, like, be involved in my life.
It was like my life was a snow globe
and I could look in and I could see
everything that was happening
but I couldn't be involved in it.
There's just, like, this wall separating me
from the rest of the world.
♪ ♪
- I went downstairs.
I just decided, "You know what? This is time.
I have an opportunity here."
That's kind of the last thing I remember.
What makes it scary is-- after the fact
is, you don't realize all the people
that would've been crushed and devastated.
♪ ♪
I didn't tell anybody. [clears throat]
In fact, even after I won the gold medal in Vancouver,
I still didn't tell anybody-- nobody.
That was a moment between...me and God
or, you know, just me and the bedroom,
and that was it.
There was...
Nobody else would get to know or find out, ever.
And it wasn't till I wrote my book
that I decided people need to know.
And actually... [clears throat]
One of the big motivations was,
close friend of mine, an athlete,
Jeret Peterson, killed himself
about the time I was writing my book,
and that's what triggered-- it was kind of like,
this is a big--this is like an epidemic.
It's...not just him.
There's a lot of people out there
that are suffering through this.
[wind howling]
- I grew up with Speedy.
Of course, he was on the aerials team.
I was on the moguls team.
And we were the young guys on the team.
I looked at him like a carefree kid
that had so much fun.
He was always smiling. He was always happy.
- And, Speedy, how did you get that nickname?
- That nickname started when I was 11 years old
when I went to my first camp.
I had a checkered life jacket
and a big racing helmet
that I borrowed from my uncle...
- Oh, okay. - And didn't really grasp
the concept of waiting in line,
and so I'd cut in front of all the other campers
and get five jumps in the time they got two.
- Okay, so it wasn't a girlfriend.
- No, no, luckily.
She'd probably be an ex-girlfriend.
- It wasn't until 2009,
when we were in Lake Placid
at the Olympic Training Center for a World Cup,
and he said, "Hey, can I chat with you for a second?"
And I said "Sure."
And we went to the TV room-- it was night;
it was dark; there's no one around--
and he said,
"You know, I want to open up to you for a second."
And I said, "Sure, what's on your mind?"
He started crying, and he said,
"Most days, I don't want to be alive."
And I didn't know anything about mental health
at that point.
I was so off-guard
because I think of Speedy as somebody
who's always been so happy
and so successful,
and I didn't know how to react,
and I just said, "Speedy, look at you.
"You're so incredibly successful.
"You're a good-looking kid.
"You have the wind behind your sails.
Like, you know, what's going on?"
And, you know, he just really opened up to me,
and I often think about that moment.
I wish I could go back to it now,
because I think I would've handled it
a lot differently than I did.
♪ ♪
- He was horribly depressed.
When he was young, he was sexually abused.
His roommate took his life with a gun,
and Jeret was witness to that whole thing,
and from there on, life was never the same.
And that was six months before the Torino Olympics.
I didn't want him to go.
I begged him not to go, but he insisted.
He was beside himself.
He didn't know where to go, who to turn to.
He lost his identity.
He told me that he didn't think
he was gonna be able to hang on for very long
and to not be surprised.
[dark music]
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- You fall to your knees,
and your heart just...shatters.
♪ ♪
I'm not angry at him for what he did.
The pain becomes insurmountable,
and the pain that he was having,
I know, 'cause I saw it.
Your spirit is crushed,
and it truly was unbearable with him.
♪ ♪
- I couldn't help but feel
a little bit responsible.
I couldn't help but feel like, you know,
"What could I have done differently?
"Who could I have talked to?
You know, is there something I could've done more?"
That's something I struggle with.
- You might be listening to all of us talk
about our struggles and wonder,
"Why don't you just get help?"
♪ ♪
Well, there are a lot of reasons,
and probably the biggest is connected to what got us
to the top in the first place:
our conviction that we can make ourselves unbeatable
if we just work at it,
our belief that there's no way we should ever need help...
♪ ♪
Our fear that we'll become weak
if we show any vulnerability.
♪ ♪
The stigma of having mental health problems
is a huge issue all across society,
how tough the issues are to talk about
or even just acknowledge.
And Olympians are definitely a group
who want to keep their pain out of sight.
- It's very, very simple.
Athletes...
most likely don't get help for...
depression
or, you know, mental health issues
because they can't even admit that it's an issue.
That is so fundamentally at odds
with being a competitor.
This is war. It's a game of strategy.
It's a game of maneuvering and posturing.
You need to show the world that you are strong.
You need to show all your competitors
that you are strong.
And so if you were to say, like,
"Oh, I have mental issues,"
like, that just cracks
the façade of trying to show the world
that you're impervious.
♪ ♪
- I was worried that people would see me
as this fragile person,
somebody they didn't want around
or, like, "Hey, you can't rely on Holcomb,
"'cause who knows what he's gonna think?
He's thinking crazy stuff,"
or, you know, "He's mentally not fit
to be"--whatever.
You know, you don't want the stigma of that
going around.
And so I didn't--I just--
I didn't tell anybody; I kept that to myself.
♪ ♪
- Athletes just don't talk about our weaknesses.
We're tough.
We will hide anything from-- and especially if it's
a team environment,
'cause you don't want to let someone know
what you're kind of going through.
♪ ♪
- The biggest thing that I struggled with
is that from the outside,
it's like, "You got everything.
Why aren't you happy all the time, 24-7?"
- So if I had, like, blown out my knee,
I know for a fact I would've had
the top physical therapist,
the top surgeon, orthopedic,
like, absolutely whatever I needed fixing my knee.
And I know that if I--
'Cause I mentioned, like, one time before to someone
in the federation, like,
"I'm actually really going through some, like,
"really dark shit right now,
and it's really interfering."
They said, "Oh, well, you could, like, look up
a therapist in your area."
Being an Olympian is advertised
as this amazing thing,
and they leave out all of the side effects.
So let's say that you make it to the Olympics.
Some side effects may include an eating disorder,
depression,
anxiety, suicidal ideation,
almost, like, a disconnect from the real world,
and then when all those side effects do happen,
there's nothing in play
to, like, help you with those.
They kind of advertise this, like,
"keeping our athletes healthy and happy,"
and, like, they really only deliver physically.
Everything else is just kind of like,
"Oh, not our problem."
♪ ♪
- I think I can honestly say now,
sort of looking back throughout my career,
I don't think anybody really cared
to help us.
I don't think anybody really jumped in
to ask us if we were okay.
As long as we were performing,
I don't think anything else really mattered.
It's pretty unfortunate to say,
pretty sad to say.
♪ ♪
- I think the last thing on my mind
was, like, "How can USA Diving
"and how can the Olympic Committee
help me with this?"
They can help me with my mental preparation
and they've done a phenomenal job
of, how do I mentally stay strong in my sport?
But not once have I gotten wisdom:
how does David stay strong outside of my sport?
- The problem is, without fully understanding
who should be helping us,
it's hard to seek out the right person,
'cause it seems like psychologists
and sports psychologists,
like, everyone wants to work with an Olympian
and have--you know, claim credit for your performance,
but when it comes to serious family issues
or mental health issues,
it's almost nonexistent.
- I'm just really frustrated with the system,
and I think as I am more on the tail end of my career,
that's where it really becomes apparent.
[applause]
- This is it.
I've said it before,
but you guys can say it.
This is the last time.
No matter how your career goes
or how long it lasts,
there's one inevitable end
we all have in common:
retirement.
It's not really natural to retire
when you're in your 20s or 30s,
and when you've devoted your life
to a pursuit of such a singular goal
and then leave it all behind,
there's that giant question:
now what?
And even bigger:
who am I?
And the truth is,
there aren't tons of programs in place
to help athletes handle the emotions
of that transition.
- What is available to retired Olympic athletes post-career?
I don't think there's anything.
If you're talking about third-party resources
that I'm aware of, I don't think there's any.
There's none that I've used.
There's actually zero that I have used
in 9 1/2 years I've been retired.
There's no pension. There's no bonus.
There's no stock option.
There's no job opportunity.
There's no more coach.
There's no more training environment.
There's no more equipment.
There's no more monthly stipend.
There's no more prize money.
Arguably, there's no more sponsorship.
Yeah, that's reality.
[laughs]
- I'm really not aware of anything that exists
for retired Olympians,
but I really feel like the bulk
of what the U.S. Olympic Committee does
is to help fund hopefuls getting to their dream.
- I will never regret competing for Team USA
and this country, absolutely not.
I have helped promote the Olympic sports
for three Olympics.
I've given my blood, sweat, and tears.
I've given my talent.
And all I'm asking is that after it's all said and done,
someone can help me
mentally get through this.
[desolate music]
♪ ♪
- Losing Speedy Peterson was a shock
for the entire Olympic community,
but it wasn't an isolated incident.
♪ ♪
Steven Scherer, a sport shooter
who represented the U.S. in Beijing,
had taken his own life
less than a year before Speedy's death.
♪ ♪
Kelly Catlin won a silver medal in 2016
as a part of the U.S. cycling team
and then took her own life in 2019.
Later that same year, Jack Hatton,
a Team USA judoka,
took his life as well.
♪ ♪
Nobody was prepared for any of these tragedies,
but the news that maybe hit the hardest
came in May of 2017.
♪ ♪
- A shock in the world of sports tonight.
The Olympic community
and bobsled fans around the world
are mourning the death of Steven Holcomb.
The Olympic champion was found in his room
at Team USA's training center in Lake Placid, New York,
this weekend.
The cause of his death
remains unclear.
♪ ♪
- Steven Holcomb was found in his room
at the Olympic training center, unresponsive,
by his best friend, Katie Uhlaender.
Steven was 37 years old.
♪ ♪
- And I don't know what was worse.
♪ ♪
Finding him...
two days late,
you just, like...
[sighs]
Then realizing, like,
thinking he was asleep and then realizing
there was nothing I could do,
and then thinking back to the days
that I should've broken into his room sooner.
How did I not do something sooner?
♪ ♪
And every time, like, I would go to text him--
he's my best friend--
I would have, like, a panic attack,
'cause my mind would go straight back
to that moment when I found him,
and I would realize he was gone,
and then I would start to wonder why.
- What else has to happen for this to change?
What else?
I mean, we see, like...
♪ ♪
Do five other athletes have to take their lives
in order to see change?
Like, how far down the road are we gonna get
before somebody actually stands up and says,
"We have to do something, and this is important"?
- I think there's no question that Olympic athletes need
more support.
You know, the solution to mental health issues
or really just general support--
right now, we're just starting to understand
how critical that is.
- I don't think that they're maliciously ignoring
our well-being.
I just don't know that if they realize
it's, like, a full, like, crisis yet.
How many more dead Olympians do they need
before they realize
that there might be an epidemic here?
- I recently requested help multiple times,
and I didn't get it, and I can't figure out
if it was because it would've taken me away
from competing for them
or if it was just, they don't have the resources
or they don't know, but regardless,
if you look at the process I had to go through,
I have to tell my coach,
or I have to tell sports med.
I have to tell sports performance.
Then they have to tell, like, two more people
over in Colorado Springs,
and then they have to, like, go through this thing
to try to find someone, determine if it's valid--
my request for help.
Like, I went through their process,
and despite those five to seven people knowing,
I didn't get any help.
♪ ♪
- I think a lot of us could've had a story
that ended like Steve Holcomb's did,
because a lot of us struggle
with so many of the same feelings.
And I saw Steve maybe, like, a week before.
He just seemed so-- like everything was fine,
and, like, I think we all seem like something's fine
until we get to that one breaking point
where either we're fortunate enough
for somebody to see us, or...
we're not lucky and we die.
♪ ♪
- Dealing with the incredible highs and lows
of being an Olympian,
the sacrifices and the challenges,
and figuring out a transition
from such a hyper-focused life--
all of it can be extremely hard,
but there is a way forward.
There are people and places that can help,
and there are outcomes that can be really successful.
♪ ♪
We just have to change the perception
that problems with mental health
are something to hide,
and in a world where Olympians are leading the way forward
to break down that stigma,
the impact could be massive.
- Where a better place to make change
than on the Olympic stage?
Youth around the world watch and look up to these people,
and if we can take a stand and make change,
it could affect the world
in recognizing what truly matters.
- It doesn't matter if you're an Olympic gold medalist
and you are the most decorated athlete
of human history
or you're someone driving a bus.
You're prone to depression.
My faith was how I was able to handle it
and still handle it,
but that's okay to handle it differently.
♪ ♪
- When stuff started getting bad,
if I had just even seen someone,
like, once or twice a week,
we probably wouldn't have ended up where I did.
- We're human.
I don't think I have to say anything else.
We're human beings, just like everybody else.
♪ ♪
Yeah, I had won a shit-ton of medals.
I had a great career.
Doesn't matter. I wasn't happy with who I was.
I thought of myself of just a swimmer
and not a human being, not a person.
No self-love, no self-confidence.
♪ ♪
You know, thinking about committing suicide
and not being alive anymore,
you know, I think back to it now still.
It's crazy, what's been able to happen
and what I've been able to learn.
- It's okay to not be okay,
and it's okay to kind of, like, talk to people about it.
You gotta definitely find the right people in your life
that you can talk to about these things.
[gentle music]
♪ ♪
- What makes the Olympics so special
is their power to bring the world together.
Like everyone else,
I can't wait to live in a world
where that's possible again,
and my hope is, when that happens,
the athletes in the center of it all
are not just ready to compete
but also supported through whatever may come
once the flame goes out.
♪ ♪
My own mental health continues to be a challenge
that I need to address on a daily basis.
It's a part of my life
as much as being a husband and a father.
It took me a long time to be okay with saying that,
and I'm ready to spend as much time as I have to
in the years ahead
to make sure others know that there's help out there
and that it's okay to not be okay.
♪ ♪
announcer: This has been a presentation
of HBO Sports.