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Unveiling Olympic Medals: History, Controversies, and Athlete Mental Health | Episode 143

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 3 • Episode 143

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Unveiling Olympic Medals: History, Controversies, and Athlete Mental Health | Episode 143

Chapter Markers
0:05 The Mental Health Impact of Olympics
12:20 Olympic Controversies and Mental Health

What if the 2024 Summer Olympics medals weren't made of pure gold, silver, or bronze? Join us as we uncover the fascinating history behind the materials of Olympic medals, dating back to 1912, and delve into the innovative opening ceremonies held on the waters of Paris, France. Learn about the artistic controversy surrounding the representation of the Last Supper that led to a celebrity boycott, and gain insight into the rigorous financial and logistical challenges faced by gymnasts and other Olympic hopefuls.

We also tackle the mental health struggles of Olympic athletes, with a spotlight on US gymnast Jordan Chiles whose bronze medal was heartbreakingly revoked due to a judging error. This episode reveals the emotional rollercoaster and stress athletes endure, the critical importance of judging accuracy, and the erosion of trust in Olympic committees. Through these powerful stories, we aim to provide a comprehensive look at the mental and emotional toll of reaching the pinnacle of athletic competition.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thank you for joining us for another episode of our TV show and podcast show and podcast. On this episode we're going to jump into the most recent Olympic Games the Summer Olympics in Paris 2024, and as it relates to mental health. But first I thought it would be an interesting fact that I found out while doing some research for the show today was there are three different medals that you can win first, second and third place. So you have gold, silver and bronze.

Speaker 1:

I was always under the impression that the medals were 100% of what that particular medal was supposed to be, so meaning that the gold metal was 100% gold, that the silver was 100% silver, that the bronze was 100% bronze, and the last time that that actually was the case was way back in 1912. And that was the Summer Games, which were held in Stockholm, sweden. And that was the last time again that everything gold, silver, bronze the medals were pure. If we look at the Olympics prior to 2024, and then including 2024, 2020 Summer Olympics, which actually were held in 2021 due to the COVID pandemic, those gold medals were made of six grams of gold plating, so on the outside, and then the silver made up a majority of that. The silver metals were made of pure silver and the bronze metals were made of what's called red brass, which is in basic terms for me is 5% zinc and 95% copper, and those are all facts, according to the IOC, which is the acronym for the International Olympic Committee. So I thought it was just interesting. We have seen some news stories of gold medals being presented and pictures posted on social media a week or two later and showing a little bit of a fading, and so the question was raised and I thought that'd be an interesting fact to kind of bring out at the beginning.

Speaker 1:

So at the beginning, the opening ceremonies were a little bit different than traditional, meaning that the opening ceremonies were not held in a stadium, that they were held on the water and the teams from the different countries, they would come down on boats and then there would be various, you know, performances on the the side of the, the water. That would happen. That would usually occur in a stadium. So that was a. That was a change from from from the past, that was noticeable. And then there was the and still is. So it's not, that's past. It happened in the past tense, but during those opening ceremonies there was a what some called a mockery of the the last summer supper painting, uh, on the you know the artistic side, uh, that france put put together and that led to some celebrities coming out on social media and being offended that that had occurred and that they would not be participating, watching, maybe attending the Olympics because of that. And I think that just goes to show how quickly a topic, an event can happen and then the repercussions good, bad, indifferent happen now versus 20, 30 years ago that we wouldn't hear until after the Olympics that this particular actor, actress, entertainer would have boycotted that. So that was, and still is, a little controversial topic and there are again people on both sides of the topic on agreeing, not agreeing and trying to put that in context.

Speaker 1:

So the Olympics happen every four years and to say that the competition to get to be an Olympic athlete, to participate in the Olympics, is very, very high, I know, talking to my students, some that are football or baseball or softball or volleyball, whatever their sport is of maybe not paying quite as close attention in class, thinking that, oh, I'm going to go into the pros. I'm going to be a professional athlete, and while that's great to strive for that, the percentage is very low of the amount of individuals who participate in collegiate sports that turn and have the opportunity to play professionally. I believe it's somewhere in less than 1% or close to 1% If we look at total athletes and then what comes down to the individuals becoming professional athletes. So we turn that into the Olympics and that competition is stiff, is hard to say the least. So a lot of training, a lot of practice, a lot of working out and flexibility, depending on what sport an individual is wishing to participate in the Olympics.

Speaker 1:

So again, olympics happen every four years. So much time, energy resources go into that training. So, for example, my daughter is five years old and she has a gymnastics class Well, an individual, oh, and so we absolutely pay for that. So there's a fee that's associated with that, and so individuals who are at the age where they would like to participate in the competition to be able to get to the Olympics, there's the money side of things of the training that happens, and so I don't know the inner workings of that, if it's a monthly fee or a per session fee when individuals get to that point. But there's the money side of things. Second, there is the proximity, the location. So maybe the gym where the practicing, the conditioning happens, maybe an hour, two hours away. I remember several years back hearing stories and I'm sure they're still the same where individuals are traveling quite a bit to be able to train If we just think of gymnastics is what I'm thinking about now.

Speaker 1:

And so you take in how competitive. So let's say I'm a competitor and I'm competing against 100 individuals and so I want to make sure I train well, that I am ready for competitions, and so you got the training and you have the money side of things, and so that can cause a burden, just like anything. That you know. We have money tied to where we may like to do something, but we just Maybe might not have the money. I mean, I'll just give a brief example I'd like to drive a Lamborghini. Well, I don't have the money to do that, so I can't. Maybe I can rent one, and was able to when I was out in Vegas for a business trip, but that was for a very brief time only, I think three or four laps around the track.

Speaker 1:

So you have that side of things. You have the money, the proximity, and then the schooling. So the individuals are going to school or are they having their studies, you know being homeschooled, so all these things kind of compete right. So you have the school time. Whether you're going to school or being homeschooled, you have potentially travel, let's say, an hour each way, so that's two hours right away. If school is five hours, that's seven hours total. Then you need to eat and all the other things. Just to live and be a human happen.

Speaker 1:

And so, to get to the point, there has been so much sacrifice, not only with the athletes, but with the family, the friends, the colleagues, that some may be helping support financially, some may be helping with, let's say, transportation to and from the gym, and so there's a lot of people that are affected, and we talk about addiction, individuals that die by suicide. It's not just the individual that passes away that's affected, it's the families, it's the friends, it's the colleagues that are also affected. So on the Olympic side, you have all this dedication and time going into having the opportunity to, to reform. So there's a lot of stress. There's a lot of stress of just living, but in this case, with the Olympics, there's a lot of stress to, you know, limited amount of time at the gym. Maybe you have an hour Monday, wednesday, friday of actual practice and conditioning, and that could be, you know, obviously help being that there was practice done, but it may hurt. Well, what about healthy social interactions with friends? You know that time goes down, social interactions with friends, that time goes down, and so sometimes an individual can feel like they're in a bubble of their family, their coach, the gym, whether they have an electric car or a gas car. There's money associated with that. That comes into play.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so we went into how competitive it is and how stressful that can be to even have the opportunity to be an Olympic athlete. So let's pivot into the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. So again, many, many sports that have happened, and there have been. Again, we go back to the medals, so we have gold, silver and bronze for each of the competitions. Some of those competitions are individual competitions, some are part of a team and so if we look at, let's say, an all-around individual, that would mean for gymnastics, that would be, you know, like a floor exercise, a ball and artistic and the beam and the rings, and there's all these different aspects that come together and for an individual, that can be, again, very stressful because you're working as an individual, right, so you do all this work and preparation, but then you're part of a team, which, in the Olympics case, you're part of the team of the controversy regarding medals and scores that occurred in gymnastics.

Speaker 1:

So four seconds isn't a lot of time, but when we talk about the gymnastics side of things, the event happens right, so the individual goes through that particular event. There are judges. They score. In most instances other than I think that I can think of is golf that you want the lowest score. Most other sports you want the highest score. So you have three judges and the max you can get from each judge is a five. Then you would be shooting for a 15, five, five and five If it's ten, ten, ten and ten, and you get the idea, and so that's how the athletes are rated and how it's decided what medal an individual or a team will be earning. And so the four seconds was the amount of time after the US women's gymnastics team member, jordan Chiles, I believe, is how to say her name. So four seconds. So Jordan finished her floor exercise, the scores came in and she ended up at the end of the day receiving the third highest score, which equals the bronze medal.

Speaker 1:

Well, four seconds was the time that elapsed for let's call it a challenge. So in baseball, there's a close play at first base. Say, in baseball there's a close play at first base, and so they go to the replay and they have a challenge and say I think the person was safe or I think they were out Well, in the same way, there are different challenges and ways to handle things In the Olympics. I'm sure there's a handbook somewhere that explains all this, but we're just talking at a high level. So in this four-second time frame it was decided that Jordan was going to win the bronze medal. So several days go by, she's got the bronze medal and she has the, the, the overall team gold medal that the, the US, women's gymnastics team, ended up earning and winning.

Speaker 1:

And so Jordan's back in in the States, she's in New York City, she's doing promos and in in interviews you know, being an Olympic athlete and earning a medal actually two and she gets word and the US Olympic team gets word that, oh well, the judges went back and they changed something after a replay. So these are days after. This isn't the four seconds that it's claimed to be that, oh, you could challenge this particular score, for you know, once it's completed, up to a minute or two minutes or three minutes I don't know the specifics about the timing, but that was apparently misunderstood by the US team. And so here Jordan's in the US, she's got her gold medal for the all-around, she's got her bronze medal for the floor and gets word that, oh, we actually screwed up the judges, the judges that were there in the arena. The judges had competition, and so what ended up happening was it boosted. So there was an actual change and it boosted the Romanian gymnast to third place and push Jordan, I believe, in the fourth or fifth place, which is out of the the metal contention.

Speaker 1:

And so that's controversy, right. You go through a competition it's so hard to get to be on the team you go through it, you feel that you've earned and feel that the judges made the right score submissions, you get the medals, you get back home and then you get kind of that call like, oh, hold on, we're going to have to take that medal from you. So there's all this controversy of not only the score is changing, but is Jordan going to have to give her bronze medal back. And so how does all that unravel or take place? And so I'd say that's a bit of controversy, and so that plays on a mental health, right. So you go through again, just to get to being an Olympian, all that stress and then to earn a medal and then have an after-the-fact decision changed.

Speaker 1:

I'd say that's pretty stressful. And then you have the media and you have social media. That sometimes isn't the kindest, and so Jordan's experiencing a lot of stress. So is the Romanian athlete, because she again at the beginning of the medal who's going to get gold, silver and bronze? She was not going to earn any of those medals and now she's boosted into the bronze medal discussion, which so again, it's stressful, it affects the mental health like oh my gosh, what's going on? And trying to ground yourself in the situation of being present. But we look in the future and think, okay, so is this gonna make or cause individuals to not trust judges, not trust the International Olympic Committee and other committees that are formed to make the rules and regulations?

Speaker 1:

Those are, those are things that are tough to really grapple with as an individual and myself not being an Olympic athlete it's stressful just even thinking about that stressful, just even thinking about that, about all that time and energy and going through competition and being an Olympic athlete, and yeah, you know I want a medal. And then, oh, wait, hold on, sorry. And you get that feeling of at any moment, things can change that at any moment. Things can change At any moment. I like to think of 9-11, obviously not in a good way happening, but when George W Bush came out and said we all need to be vigilant. If you see something, say something, and so that really came to be a little bit of the subconscious of individuals. Right, you're in a movie theater, you're at an event and your senses are heightened. I think a little bit of those senses are being heightened. What happened to these Olympic athletes that that has occurred with? So very difficult to go with those individuals?

Speaker 1:

Simone Biles so she is what I believe is the most decorated US Olympic gymnast, women's gymnast in history. She earned three gold medals, one silver. She earned the individual all-around gold medal, the team all-around gold medal, the Vol gold medal and then she earned the silver of the floor. So what brings Simone to light a little bit of controversy around her was the 2021 Summer Olympics, which were supposed to be held in 2020, held in 2021 in Tokyo.

Speaker 1:

She was competing and I can only just imagine what it feels like to do different spins and twists and all the different. I don't even know the terms. That's how much I know about gymnastics, but there's a lot of a lot of things you gotta worry about and as she was going through a competition, she, in her mind, wasn't feeling right and she was actually experiencing I guess it's called the twisties, which I didn't know that was a real type of word as we talk about this, but it's a psychological term where an individual who is trying to do twists and turns as a gymnast, they lose their surroundings. They're like, okay, I'm twisting twice, twice, or am I twisting once or three times? And so that can really mess an individual up, because if their routine is supposed to include, you know, three types of twists and only one are done, then there's points deducted.

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, back in 2021, she ended up with withdrawing from some of the competition because she lost that awareness when she was doing the twist and there was a lot of people who criticized her back then, saying you took up a spot of somebody who could have competed in the particular events that she withdrew from Questioning. You know her strength and you know, not just physically, but you know mentally, you know not, a lot of things are going on, of things are going on knowing that hundreds of millions of people are going to be watching on top of just being present in the moment. And so there's that controversy, and that affected her mental health and that caused her to put out a quote that says, quote I put mental health first because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're not going to succeed as much as you want to. So it's okay sometimes to even set out big competitions, to focus on yourself, because it shows how strong of a competitor and a person you really are, rather than just battling through it, which which? Let me just get through this. However it happens, I'm just going to get through this situation. I'm going to get through this event. I'm going to get through this particular presentation, this particular sporting event, this practice, what have you? And so that was powerful. And so, again, there's controversy of like. Okay, you talk about the controversy of like. Okay, you know, we talk about the stigma of mental health, and I think that's where that kind of came into play with media and individuals that were criticizing her at that point, that nobody knows how the individual is feeling except the individual, and so for us to you know, label, silos or boxes of like, oh well, this person is like this and so there's other people that have an opportunity, and why aren't we giving another person that opportunity? So I thought that was very strong for Simone to do that and to come out and actually talk about it. We've had Michael Phelps in the past, the greatest Olympic swimmers of all time. Us men swimming also come out in recent years and I believe he's a spokesman for a mental health organization.

Speaker 1:

And then, lastly, regarding Simone, simone's birth mother. So Simone was adopted. So her birth mother, shannon Biles it's come out in recent days that she wants to reconnect and reconcile with the Olympic gymnast Simone. To reconnect and reconcile with the Olympic gymnast Simone. She explained how she thought it was best at the time when she put Simone up for adoption because she was dealing with drug and alcohol abuse. So again, right, that's right in our wheelhouse for Voices, for Voices, and talking about mental health and addiction and recovery and how these things can affect people, everyday people, whether it's just an average person like myself or somebody with a higher status of an Olympian or a professional athlete that these things that we're talking about, they're real, and I think it's important just to continue to bring a delay and help push that stigma away. So my hope is that Simone and her birth mother, shannon, are able to reconcile that at some point. Shannon are able to reconcile at some point and that could be a powerful story, as we try to look at cases and scenarios of you know, at a given time, somebody may be struggling, but that doesn't define the person, because that's a moment or a couple moments in time that an individual may need to take a break, and so our hope is that Shannon and Simone can reconcile.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Please share like comment. We're trying to help and reach 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. So until next time, I am Justin Allen Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices. Please be a voice for you or somebody in need.

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