I tend to be a bit of a sceptic about things and hence typically don’t get excited by whatever social media motivational theme du jour is doing the rounds. I was never an ice bucket challenge participant, I try not to get swayed by all those silly videos of three-legged cats and, as for the hawk tuah girl… I won’t even go there.
But every now and then I see something that resonates. A case in point happened the other day…
Readers will know that I’m a runner and hence the more exciting Olympic sports for me involve people on two legs going crazy fast over various distances. As a runner, I have to admit that I find race-walking a fairly bizarre sport. Don’t get me wrong, running an ultramarathon is also bizarre and hence I’m aware that I’m in no position to judge. But running around my local park I often come across race walkers out training and, to be frank, it just looks really awkward. Anyway, to avoid annoying any more race-walkers, I’ll get back to the theme of my article.
I was catching up on events at the Paris ’24 Olympics and I came across an interview that happened directly after the women’s race walk event. The bronze medalist in the marathon, Jemima Montag, was asked about her success. Bear in mind that beyond winning two medals in pairs, Montag is also a full-time medical student and part of the International Olympic Committee Young Leaders programme. Can anyone spell overachiever?
Anyway, Ontag’s response was really interesting. And we should consider her response within the context of the increasing prevalence of mental health issues for young elite sportspeople. The genesis of those issues is pretty obvious to see – huge expectations from friends, family, sporting bodies and their broader communities play a huge part. The increasing prevalence of elite athletes building a presence on social media and sometimes painting a wholly unrealistic picture of their lives. The reality is that any elite athlete (actually any athlete for that matter) will face failure on occasion.
Showing a very real maturity, and reflecting upon her performances, Montag had a simple message to share:
Play on is my message, It doesn’t matter if you’re doing sport for fun in your backyard or whether you want to take it to Olympic level. Sport is about community, a sense of belonging, making friends, looking after your physical and mental health, and learning amazing life skills like dedication and leadership.
Montag went on to explain that she had thirty or so friends and family who had travelled the distance from Australia to watch her compete. She was driven to do well to honour their own sacrifice. She also wanted to show appropriate levels of gratitude for the 15-year journey it had taken her to get to the Olympics. All the right sort of themes (cynics might say platitudes) that we would expect from an Olympic medalist.
But where Montag really got philosophical was with what she said next. She explained that, with elite sporting events like this, there is a careful balance between wanting that medal (or whatever success looks like for the individual) and needing it. Absolutely an athlete should, and must, desperately want to succeed. They need to make huge sacrifices and have an intense focus on their goal of choice and need to continuously strive towards it.
But there is a difference between that deep want and a far more dangerous need. As she detailed, no athlete should need to succeed in order to feed their own self-worth. And, if they don’t succeed and it doesn’t happen for them, the sun will still rise tomorrow.
We live in a time with such incredible pressure – on students, on athletes, on entrepreneurs. A time when success is lauded and held up as a non-negotiable requirement. But in all of those endeavours, success simply isn’t available to everyone. There will always be winners and losers. If we measure our worth as individuals by our ability to achieve our goals, we run the risk of failing in the biggest challenge of all, that of getting through life healthy and happy.
While I might scratch my head about Montag’s sport of choice, and worry about the longevity of her hips given what race-walkers ask of their joints, when it comes to a robust perspective on life, she wins gold in my view.
