Ian Thorpe’s much–publicised battle have prompted many to believe that success and depression often go hand in glove in swimming, but nine-time Olympic champion swimmer Mark Spitz feels the psychological disorder today is not just limited to his sport but rampant in other disciplines as well.
Talking about Australia’s retired swimming star Thorpe, Spitz said he could understood the problems faced by the latter after having won a bagful of medals over the years.
“I can understand why he may have been depressed, he probably didn’t complete his career in the way he wanted it to. I think Ian (Thorpe) didn’t have a chance to gracefully retire and a lot of athletes don’t retire gracefully, they hang around for one too many years and then they start to not do as well,” Spitz said ahead of the 15th Laureus World Sports Awards.
The 64–year–old Spitz from California, a former world record holder, won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the achievement stood intact until fellow countryman Michael Phelps clinched an unprecedented eight gold medals at the Beijing games. However, the records he had set in all his events in Munich, still stands.
“Well Ian Thorpe, Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz were able to win multiple medals but by and large most people who swim have won one medal.
‘Depression is rampant’
“And there are people who are having tremendous depression problem like in the NBA, the basketball players suddenly get traded because they didn’t have such a good year, they get salary reduction and pretty soon they are not even playing basketball, they never got an education, they don’t have the expertise to go to some other field and then they become frustrated,” Spitz said.
“So I don’t think it is exclusive to swimming, it’s rampant everywhere, and the money you make as a professional, regardless of the sport you play, the bigger the fall,” Spitz said.
Talking further about Thorpe, Spitz said, “Actually I heard about it and I had met Ian a year and half ago and we spoke about it. I have my thoughts about his condition and part of it is not necessarily human and it has to do with the tremendous amount of success and you really don’t have any sort of other initiative.
“Like you might not have been a very good student, you may not have got a degree from a good university in some specialised courses, so you have nothing to fall back on. And then everybody is constantly saying how good you are, how great you are, what you going to do next...win another medal, break another world record, and get another endorsement, and all of a sudden you retire like almost instinctively.”
Staying away from media and critics
Spitz said, during his time, the mantra to hid success was to stay away from the media and critics.
“In the beginning of my career, when I first broke records, my coach came up to me and told me ‘you are not talking about it to the press and you will now have a difficult task to handle, as everybody will be after breaking your record’”
“He told me that the best way to combat it is to avoid talking something stupid and get back to practice. Don’t ever talk about it and let your actions in the pool speak for you.
That’s what I did. I always tried to speak through my performance,” he said.
“Even the press was different back those days. I was not expected to interact with the press. Now it is different, the press can go to anyone and talk to them. Probably, you would know more about me than I know about myself.”
