After Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, a New Zealander tragically reopens the debate on the mental health of athletes, following the recent Olivia Podmore tragedy.
New Zealand cyclist Olivia Podmore spent her last weekend with Olympic rowing champion Eddy Murray, her partner, and a friend in Queenstown, beside spectacular Lake Hawea. On Monday, she was found dead in her residence.
Podmore participated in the Rio Olympics and was not selected for the Tokyo one. “No one who has seen her in the past 72 hours could have imagined that this would happen,” Murray said. “There is a lot of talk about the mental health of athletes,” he added. “Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka put this issue in the spotlight after their own personal struggles. Olivia’s fight was the same, and now we have one more number for statistics”, criticized the rower.
A few hours before his death, Podmore, who was 24 years old, had posted a note on social media giving a glimpse of his state of mind: “Sport is an incredible outlet for a lot of people. A very rewarding fight. The feeling when you win doesn’t compare to any other,” she wrote, “but the feeling when you lose, when you’re not chosen or classified, when you get injured, when you don’t meet society’s expectations, like having a house, getting married, having children, because they tried to give everything for the sport, these feelings are different”.
All signs point to suicide, although New Zealand police have not ruled out any possibility. Since the news broke, the cycling federation has been the target of a barrage of criticism. Cyclist Eddie Dawkins, who competed in two Olympics, was directly responsible for the New Zealand Cycling Federation and High-Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ), an organization that brings together the country’s elite sport and promotes its athletes around the world. For Dawkins, Olivia’s friend who has already stopped competing, his death was preventable. “It’s a damn shame, it’s terrible that this happened. My most heartfelt condolences to your family and friends. But I hope that if anything positive comes out of this, it’s for athletes to start defending themselves.”
The athlete was out of the Tokyo Olympics
Raelene Castle, director of Sport New Zealand (Sport NZ), defended herself against the accusations: “We cannot say if we have made mistakes until we analyze this matter. Every athlete has many people who support them throughout their career, and Olivia was no different.” Castle said it is difficult to assimilate accusations that athletes are not being treated well. “Mental health is a challenge. There are no answers in black or white.”
The director defined Olivia Podmore as “a very happy, outgoing person who lit up the room”, adding: “I am very sad about her loss”. Castle also claimed to be “devastated” by the accusations of some athletes. “We understand their frustration. I want to make sure we learn from this,” she said. “The support offered to athletes in our plans is not perfect. Olivia’s legacy has to be that we make improvements, maybe we haven’t been diligent in analyzing aid programs.”
Olivia Podmore has been part of her country’s national cycling team since 2015. She was silver in the team sprint and bronze in the time trial at the World Youth Track in Astana (Kazakhstan). In 2016, she took part in the Adult Worlds and the Rio Games. In her favorite specialty in the keirin, she suffered a hard fall along with Spanish Tania Calvo, from which she took a long time to recover. She reached the minimum mark to participate in the Tokyo Games but was not selected for the team.
Experts point out that suicide usually has no single reason, being the result of psychological, biological, and social factors that have treatment. People with suicidal behavior should contact the crisis helpline calling the number 188 or visit their website for more information.