Every serious athlete will — at the end of their career — experience a unique type of death. The best thing anyone ever said to me after I competed at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games was not “congratulations,” but “I’m sorry for your loss.” It validated the period of mourning that came next, acknowledging an emptiness that seemed otherwise embarrassing to admit and confusing to describe. I didn’t know I needed grief to be named. But in the aftermath of it all, when the Games no longer cast a light but a shadow on my life, realizing that some form of depression was inevitable came as a huge relief. 

It’s been a few months since this year’s Olympic Games closed — and when the feeling of things being truly over starts to sink in for athletes. 

More and more people have spoken out about the post-Olympic blues, from high-profile athletes to academics. Feeling low after an existential high is not a phenomenon unique to sport, and as people begin to talk more openly about mental health, there’s increasing awareness of its various manifestations across different spectrums and in different contexts, from postpartum to post-performance depression. But awareness doesn’t take away from the fact that any form of transition — especially an identity transition — is hard. Self-discovery is liberating, but it’s also lonely. Every athlete has to figure out, on their own, who they are now, without the sport that has defined them for so long.

So it makes sense that many athletes would make great artists. There’s a swath of budding athletes-turned-photographers, from American Olympic 2020 trampoline alternate Charlotte Drury to two-time Olympic bronze medalist ice dancer Alex Shibutani to Paris fencer Enzo Lefort. There are impressive multi-hyphenates like Luc Abalo, French three-time handball gold medalist, now painter-fashion designer; and Alexi Pappas, 2016 Greek Olympian turned author-auteur. New initiatives from the International Olympic Committee are cluing into this growing trend, recognizing the potential among athletes — especially retiring ones — for artistic talent, given the emotional wells they have to draw upon. 

But beyond recommending abstract means to process one’s emotions and actively reaching out to peers — Alexi Pappas is offering her email dearalexipappas@gmail.com unsolicited to any athlete who needs a sympathetic shoulder to lean on — I want to offer a few things I’ve learned in the years since I last competed, for any athlete who might be out there struggling to face a new reality. 

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Dear Olympian,

Congratulations. Soak it all in. Revel in that post-performance glow and bask in the glory. Get the tattoo — ankle, wrist, and back of neck are the classiest locations, in my opinion. Eat a lot of food and do nothing for a month. No one will ever be able to take away this victory from you —  this title of “Olympian” you’ll get to cherish forever, lord over everyone for the rest of your life and use as a fun fact whenever you feel like being annoying.

But when you come down from the clouds you very much deserve to enjoy, expect some altitude sickness. There is nothing that compares to the high you’ve just experienced — which isn’t to say that your life is over. Far from it. But it will be completely different from the one you’ve known up to this point. The Olympic experience is a treasure you have earned, but it lives on now only in memory.

In the aftermath, be kind to yourself. As much as you think you know what to expect, you can’t really prepare yourself for what comes next. Maybe it takes two months, maybe it takes two years. But someday soon, you’ll realize that nobody cares about you anymore.

At least, not in the way you’re used to. 

The Olympics are a giant magnifying glass. They make you the most important person in the world for two weeks. Everyone lives in their own world — but for two weeks, your world becomes the one everyone cares about too. The pressure came from knowing every single person you’ve ever known was — probably — watching you, and anyone who matters at all to you will have seen you do the one thing you’ve been doing for a very long time. Success does not prove your worth as a person — but it did as an athlete. Some people win and some people lose. Sport makes that distinction clear. For better or worse, you were constantly being judged. But judgment was still a form of attention. 

In the aftermath, regardless of how you competed, you will feel lonely. But it’s a new kind of loneliness. It’s quiet. It’s different from the loneliness of being in the gym at 7 a.m., of icing your muscles when everyone else has fallen asleep, of crying in the shower after a bad competition. This new loneliness doesn’t carry a higher purpose, or some veneer of nobleness that the loneliness is all for something. This new loneliness will make you feel small. Free. Relieved. But also empty. What do you fill all that space in with?

As an athlete, there is nowhere to hide. You win, lose, train and compete for everyone to see. Your coaches keep track of your progress, and your fans hold you accountable. You can never hide your mistakes, but you never have to search for your wins either. There is always a witness to your efforts. So you commit to the practice, and you trust in the process. It is beautiful — and so devastatingly simple.

But in the aftermath, you will feel hidden. Like you’ve disappeared into a void of oblivion, left only with your own thoughts of yourself and no one else’s.

“What were the Olympics like?”, people will ask. “What was the pressure like?”, people will ask. And they won’t understand, because it’s too complicated to explain in a punchy party sound bite.

In the aftermath, you will feel confused. It’s hard to understand how something so real so quickly fades into memory. The shape of your existence had been so solid, and then suddenly you’re drifting. Floating. Lost. Shapeless. Who are you now? What do you do now? Everything and anything pales in comparison to before. Sometimes it will feel like you’re in competition with your past self with no way to win.

But the past isn’t something you can beat, nor it you. You are still you, and you will always be you.

So in the aftermath, think less of yourself. As athletes, we have too much pride. We are spoiled with attention and showered with medals, media, swag and sponsors. As Olympians, we are the “chosen ones,” and we feel that we deserved all our wins because we worked so mind-numbingly hard. But so did many others. We had critical people surrounding and supporting us the whole time, and resources others didn’t. Luck was on our side because we’ve never been that special on our own.

But in the aftermath, think more of yourself. We athletes don’t have enough faith. We are worthy beyond our sport and beyond our existence in one manifestation. We are celebrated incessantly for our talent and our grit, but those traits are transferable, even if they won’t ever be exalted in the same way. Living without an audience will humble you, but there’s more to life than applause. There’s more to life than excellence.

In the end, we are lucky. It’s weird to use the past and present tense interchangeably, to say we used to be athletes but are still Olympians. And in many ways, it feels wrong to claim an identity we no longer actively embody. But that is what makes being an Olympian so special: it is a memory and experience we get to own forever. Sometimes it will haunt you, but sometimes it will empower you. The only expectations you have to live up to now are the ones you set for yourself. And that is its own blessing.

Welcome to the other side, class of 2024.

LAURA ZENG ’25 writes the bi-monthly column, “Ask an Olympian,” on her opinions and life experiences. Contact her at laura.zeng@yale.edu.