Nelson Evora says the way we look at mental health in athletes needs to change.

Portugal’s Nelson Evora, Olympic champion in the triple jump at Beijing 2008, now believes that the way we look at mental health in athletes needs to change, given that a great athlete is also a great manager.

On the sidelines of the II National Seminar on Mental Health in Highly Competitive Sports, which took place in Estoril and was organized by the Association of Olympic Athletes of Portugal (AAOP), Évora said that we “have to change this view of mental health.” Problems .

“Usually the process of those who dreamed and failed to achieve their dreams is accompanied by disappointments, worries and many other things that affect mental health. When an athlete reaches the maximum stage and reaches the top, he suffers from all this and more due to the fact that he is a target. Whatever he says, whatever he represents, good or bad, ends up being a target to be shot down,” he told Lusa.

For Nelson Evora, it’s a “strange feeling, but it has a real and very profound impact on the mental health of top athletes,” assuming athletes should be “good managers” of their lives and careers.

“We have a specific day in our lives when we have to be at our best and we have problems related to our profession. It’s not just jumping around, interpersonal relationships are also very influential and we have to deal with all of that. In fact, a great day athlete makes a great manager. We have to perceive, at least here in Portugal, what a great manager is because we have to manage so many things in our personal life, in our sporting life, and at the same time we have to prepare ourselves mentally. for big stages, for big competitions, for big criticism,” he said.

Nelson Evora also regretted being part of a generation that did not have access to mental health care, which he considers “extremely important, as well as training, rest, competing at the highest level and consistency.”

“Mental health turns out to be more important than some of these ingredients that are fundamental to any athlete’s success,” he suggested.

During one of the tables at the II National Seminar on Mental Health in Elite Sports, Nelson Evora said that this support could “get rid of some scars”, assuming he began therapy in 2016.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic champion believed that if his former coach Joao Gansu had also undergone therapy, they might not have split up because there were gaps in communication, which is “critically important” for Evora.

“The secret of my medals is that we came to the best moment of our communication,” he suggested.

Option Marta Onofre was also present at the event and admitted that she will retire next year as she wants to finish her career on the world stage after injuries affected her performance after the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the only one she was able to attend.

“When we end our career, we feel a huge emptiness. We need to start preparing much earlier,” he emphasized.

Having a higher medical education, Marta Onofre said that combining the course and high-performance sports was not always easy, there were many obstacles along the way, with the completion of specialization and the desire to be a mother more often, managing motherhood becomes more difficult. one of the biggest difficulties of athletes, which led to the decision to end their career.