Too Much Pressure on Aussie Olympic Athletes?

I have been reading the Aussie press during these Olympics Games to check the performance of the Australian athletes since in the U.S. you will only see an Aussie if he/she is competing against an American and that American is a medal chance. Nothing against the U.S. media as that is probably the case in any country. As the swimming competition is nearly finished, questions are being raised as to why so many of the Aussies are not performing to their potential, why aren’t they excelling on the sport's greatest stage, and why are our world champions settling for silver and bronze?

It is an interesting perspective living in the U.S. and comparing the media coverage of the local athletes leading up to and during the games with what I saw back in Australia. The media coverage of each Aussie medal hope is an order of magnitude greater than most of the U.S. medal prospects. As a result, public exposure and expectations on the Aussie athletes is much greater. These athletes are not like our good tennis players or footballers who are regularly in the media spotlight. Many of these athletes are relatively unknown until they make the Olympic Games, even if they won a World Championships title the previous year. The same can be said for U.S athletes in terms of media experience, but they typically don't get exposed to the pre-Games media analysis and subsequent public expectations in the lead up that you see in Australia.

Australia's success in the Summer Olympics is amazing based on our population. We were sixth on the list of medal winners at Beijing, ahead of much larger developed countries such as France and Japan and only just behind Germany. So why do we continue to put so much pressure on our athletes to succeed? Is it an inferiority complex Australians have, where we feel we have to prove ourselves in the world sporting arena? I heard an interview of Emily Seebohm this morning after she got a silver medal to Missy Franklin in the 100M backstroke. Rather than being happy to win a medal, she said she felt she let everyone down.... Is it fair she has to feel this way? She had trained her heart out I am sure and gave it all she had. If she swam the same time in the final as she did in her semi, she would have won, but I don’t blame that on the poor girl, I think it is the pressure to win, where nothing but gold is a success, that affects Seebohm and others such as James Magnussen and the men’s 4x100M relay team.

Missy Franklin, a 17 year old high school girl from Centennial Colorado, is a perfect contrast to Seebohm. Even though she had won World Championships medals and was in a record number of races for a US female swimmer, there was little pressure on her to bring home lots of gold. There were no predictions on how many medals she would win and being young and in her first Olympics, the media seemed to give her a break and just wished her well. No such leniency on Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, but they have won plenty of medals before and can handle the media (Phelps at least). So the outside pressure on Franklin was minimal and she could race with a clear conscience not concerned about letting down her team, the coaches and the public.


Why have I seen so many Aussies post fastest qualifying times in the semis, then swim slower for a minor medal in the final? Are they swimming under less pressure in the semis where a medal is not at risk, so they perform better? Aussies have traditionally been better underdogs than favorites, probably because they are not burdened by the overwhelming public expectations in the games lead-up. We often see Russian, Chinese and Japanese athletes underperform when they are favorites due to the pressure to succeed on these athletes also.

I believe the U.S. athletes have much less pressure and therefore are more likely to perform to their potential for two main reasons: The first is that there are so many U.S. medal chances and often multiple per event, that the athletes rarely have so much pressure to succeed compared to Australians who only have a limited number of medal opportunities. Related to this point is that in many cases the US athletes’ greatest competition comes in qualifying for the Olympics and they often feel less pressure in the Olympics (see comments from Gymnastics team). The second factor is that in the U.S., Olympic sports are second tier compared to the major US professional sports. For the vast majority of the public, the Olympics are a bridge between the end of the baseball season (for the 95% of fans who's teams are out of World Series contention) and the start of the football season. It is a sad fact that the popularity of the Olympics has gradually fallen in the past 20-30 years, and most medal winners are forgotten within days of the Olympics finishing. When the U.S. Olympic team left for London, most of the medal prospects were still unknowns and by the time the public got to know them through NBC's documentary style coverage, the athletes were largely insulated from any public expectations.

One final point: NBC's coverage continually displays U.S. teammates in the warm up room getting all excited when someone in the pool wins or gets an unexpected medal, and when defeated by a compatriot they are very complimentary and supportive. The team as a whole just seems happy and like a bunch of excited kids on a field trip. It reminds me of competing in Intervarsity athletics which was fun. I am not seeing the Aussie coverage, but wonder if there is the same display of team camaraderie. Or does the media and public pressure have everyone focusing on themselves, missing out on valuable support from teammates and perhaps more importantly the younger athletes are missing out on support and guidance from their more senior teammates.

As long as Australians feel a need to prove ourselves on the world stage, the pressure on Aussie medal prospects is not going to subside in this or future Olympics. So let's face it, there will always be pressure. How do Australian athletes therefore overcome this pressure to be able to perform at their best on the world stage? For a start, I think coaches and team management have to insulate the athletes as much as possible from the outside pressures, and don’t make wild predictions the media to put on even more pressure. Secondly, I think Olympic management should provide assistance via sports psychologists to help the athletes through the games. Maybe is wasn’t psychologists, but Missy Franklin seemed to have almost every minute mapped out for her by team management to carefully guide her through her busy competition schedule. Do the Australian athletes get this assistance? Maybe they do, but I knew athletes who competed in Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney and I don’t know of any real assistance they received to help them prepare for their events. I hope this hasn’t been the case, but if so, it is a huge area for improvement.

After working so hard to get to the Olympics it is a shame to not perform to your full potential because you were too concerned about letting everyone one down…..