CTV Article re: Athletes' Mental Health & the Media (Patrick Chan, KMT)

[Dr. Jenn]

I just came across a good article about athletes' mental health, particularly regarding their interactions with the media (per the Naomi Osaka situation). Patrick Chan and Kirsten Moore-Towers offer their perspectives on interactions with the media in figure skating. Also, it is shared that Patrick and his wife, Elizabeth, are going to be having a baby boy in September.

Athletes: Osaka's withdrawal raises important questions on media and mental health

There were times Patrick Chan wanted to march right past reporters after his skate.

www.ctvnews.ca

 

[anonymoose_au]

Interesting article! To be honest I find press conferences utterly uninteresting probably because the press often asks the same stupid questions "You had a rough skate/game out there, I guess that wasn't what you hoped for?" Like obviously!

And congratulations to Patrick and Elizabeth, that's lovely news

 

[Mathman]

Relatively speaking, I think that in figure skating the relation between the athletes and the media is not nearly so adversarial as it ican be in some other sports. The majority of post-skate interviews feature a few pablum soft-ball questions and equally pablum soft-ball answers. It is not necessary for a skater to come up with a brilliant technical explanation of exactly what went wrong on his triple Lutz. He can just say modestly, "I have something to work in practice next week."

At the 2002 Olympics, Michelle Kwan gave a disappointing free skate, after which she retired behind closed dorrs to await the verdict (Irina Slutskaia was still to skate). The press gathered around the door waithing for her to comer out and face the music. But she didn't. Instead she "sent word" that she would be available for comments only after the entire competition was over -- go away.

When she had composed herself and was ready to meet the press, all she gave them was some vague platitude along the lines of, "I made some mistakes but I didn't give up."

(The ISU did not fine her $15,000. )

I did like what Venus Willaims revealed as her technique for dealing with the press. She said, I just keep reminding myself that none of these people could score even a single point off me on the tennis court, so what do I care what they say or write?

 

[4everchan]

Congrats to Patrick and Liz! Hopefully that child will be trained in the special art of edges and blade work.
Since his retirement, Patrick has been involved in a lot of important causes. What a wonderful role model !

 

[Amei]

Relatively speaking, I think that in figure skating the relation between the athletes and the media is not nearly so adversarial as it ican be in some other sports. The majority of post-skate interviews feature a few pablum soft-ball questions and equally pablum soft-ball answers. It is not necessary for a skater to come up with a brilliant technical explanation of exactly what went wrong on his triple Lutz. He can just say modestly, "I have something to work in practice next week."

At the 2002 Olympics, Michelle Kwan gave a disappointing free skate, after which she retired behind closed dorrs to await the verdict (Irina Slutskaia was still to skate). The press gathered around the door waithing for her to comer out and face the music. But she didn't. Instead she "sent word" that she would be available for comments only after the entire competition was over -- go away.

When she had composed herself and was ready to meet the press, all she gave them was some vague platitude along the lines of, "I made some mistakes but I didn't give up."

(The ISU did not fine her $15,000. )

Was Michelle Kwan required per the media obligations as part of the Olympics to speak shortly after her skate? And she did eventually say something, my understanding of the situation in tennis is that it is a required part of the professional tennis tournament and a player decided before she went that she was not going to participate in that requirement and the tournament said you fulfill your requirements or you will be assessed a punishment for missing that requirement.

 

[el henry]

I was particularly struck by this quote:

"If an athlete has an ankle sprain, and you're saying, 'Hey jump up and down on it 10 times,' the athlete should say, 'No, that's not healthy for me, this could be more damaging for me.' And so, if an athlete says, 'I just don't think this is OK for me (to speak to media) right now, can I give it some time?' I think we need to listen to that," said Karen MacNeill, a performance consultant and mental health counsellor for Canada's Olympic teams.

And how much the "suck it up and forge on" mentality can be as damaging to mental health.

(and congratulations to Patrick and Elizabeth!)

 

[Mathman]

Was Michelle Kwan required per the media obligations as part of the Olympics to speak shortly after her skate? And she did eventually say something, my understanding of the situation in tennis is that it is a required part of the professional tennis tournament and a player decided before she went that she was not going to participate in that requirement and the tournament said you fulfill your requirements or you will be assessed a punishment for missing that requirement.

It's tricky. I don't think that there is a formal contractual requirement for figure sdkaters, even now, that they must give interviews. But national federations and event organizers are anxious to maintain good press relations and push skaters to help out on yhis public relations chore as much as possible. Good press presumably translates into money somewhere along the line, for all concerned.

The more money at stake, the more stringent the rules. In the National (U.S.) Football League, for instance, I am pretty sure that it is specified in each coaches' contract that if his team is leading after the first half then he must submit to exactly two questions from the press before he heads for the locker room. "What ajustments are you going to make for the second hsalf?" and one other. Ypu can ususally tell that the coach hates the intrusion and has contempt for the media person (especially when the media person is a woman), but he has to go along, however grudgingly. (In fact, I net that the two questions rule was negotiated between the coaches, who wanted zero questions, and the media, who wanted as many as possible.

Where the organizers of the French Open tennis tournament went wrong is that they managed to come off looking like mean stick-up-the-butts by the ham-handed way that they dealt with it. The public sympathy settled on the player rather than with the powers that be, never mind lawyers and contracts. It could have been handled with more grace. The only silver lining is that the incident might spark (as in the case of this article) a fruitful discussion of mental health issues in athletics.

 

[Mathman]

^ PS. As for Michelle Kwan personally, in those years she had some sort of individual contract with the USFSA and the television networks. I don't know exactly what she was required to do for them, but for instance, I believe that she was expected to show up for all the cheesefests that the network sponsored and also to do some publicity workon behalf of theFederation. In her absolute peak years she was paid up to US$ 900,000 annually for this.

 

[NanaPat]

I think that Naomi Osaka was very willing to pay the fine(s) for not speaking to the media ($15,000 per missed press conference), but she was then threatened with much greater penalties if she persisted.

She chose to withdraw rather than give in to the threats. At least this way there are no penalties that would affect later tournaments.

 

[4everchan]

Osaka also didn't want the attention being all on her.... so she withdrew also out of respect to her colleagues and to the sport.

 

[ladyjane]

Congratulaions to Patrick and Elizabeth! Interesting article, and some good thoughtful posts commenting. Mental health is no joke.