Mr. Phelps is quite forthcoming about his own difficulties adjusting to a post-Olympics life, though what he says is quite obviously scripted. (Mr. Phelps notes during the introduction that 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes would have participated in the Tokyo Games.) Nor is the question of motivations, beyond what we see in footage of Ms. Cohen and Mr. Phelps and snowboarding phenom Shaun White as kids, expressing their Olympic dreams and setting their sights. What one would have appreciated from Mr. Rapkin was a little more exploration of what Olympic athletes expect, given how crushed they seem to be by unmet expectations. The upshot of “The Weight of Gold” is that the public perception of an “Olympic community” is a mirage when it comes to mental health, and that those who suffer do it alone.

Source: Wall Street Journal July 28, 2020 21:00 UTC