Commuting home this week, I heard a radio show where listeners phoned-in to express their shock and outrage about the way the ROC team approached their duty of care to teen athlete, #Kamila Valieva in the #beijing2022olympics
What made me think was this: earlier this week, a teen patient told me they were worried about telling their manager they would be out for health reasons for a few weeks. This was causing the teen more stress than the actual health concern.
I wish I could say that conversation was a once off experience in my career. It is not. While most clubs are fantastic, there are also unhealthy cultures here in Ireland, too. The culture in Ireland may not be Russia, but we should be aware that we aren’t always putting teen-athlete welfare first here.
In international studies, between 40-50% of teen athletes have felt pressured to “downplay” an injury due to perceived pressure from teammates, coaching staff or parents. And this is something that my colleagues and I see: asked to “clear” health concern (including head injury) to get a teen back on the pitch, regardless of pain or need for appropriate professional rehab.
So, why were we all so upset about this Olympic incident? Was it because of anti-Russia political sentiment colouring how we saw this? The understandable outrage at doping allegations against a team already found guilty of doping in Sochi?
Or is it because we haven’t had the discussions here yet that we need to?
If you are teen athlete reading this:
“You are worth as much as any professional premier league footballer. They don’t play through injury and neither should you. You don’t need to compete if you have mental stress – you are worth as much as Simone Biles. You have a body and mind that is still growing and developing. You have the right to train in a culture that reassures you that recovery is part of your growth as an athlete.”
Want to read more? This Irish study didn’t get the attention that it should have when it came out, probably because of the timing, but the findings in this paper are important:https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/study-finds-athletes-fear-being-judged-as-weak-when-they-experience-pain-or-injury/
0 Comments