Cathy Freeman now faces a life without athletics.
Please watch Cathy closely
By MIKE HURST
17jul03
FRIENDS and associates have been urged to keep a caring watch over Cathy Freeman in the days and even years to come after her retirement from the track yesterday.
Having achieved such monumental heights, the risk of a rebound just as far reaching into depression are a real threat to Freeman, just as they proved to be to her mentor Raelene Boyle and friend Darren Clark who both experienced clinical depression several years after they quit.
The International Olympic Committee recognises it, so do those charged with developing such elite sports stars.
Michael Martin, co-ordinator of a staff of eight sports psychologists at the NSW Institute of Sport, deals with the issue of the sporting blues.
“The comment I’m interested in was something I heard Cathy say like, ‘It’s never going to be the same, it’s going to be hard’,” Martin said.
"I would imagine that getting the Olympic silver in '96 and having that very intense four years where she won the world championship in '97 and again in '99, always very much focused on the track towards 2000, then to have the Olympics in your own country and be everything she was there, how could you replicate that?
"I understand that. I look at people in public life and think John Howard and even George Bush have never scaled those heights.
"I know that making transition from that level, no matter what sport you’re in, is difficult. But it’s your ability to put the tools into action that made you an elite athlete.
"I don’t know what else Cathy has going in her life, but I know she has a great skill-set that is translateable across into another career.
“I don’t know what that career is and I don’t know whether she knows what that is, but I think that’s important, that it’s not all gloom and doom.”
Freeman gave an insight into her own frame of mind when she wrote a column for London’s Daily Telegraph of her decision to retire: "When you have done something nearly all your life, the ending of the relationship becomes almost unreal. I’m sad but it had to be.
“I don’t think anybody, certainly not myself, realised what a toll Sydney took on me. It was wonderful, marvellous, the pinnacle of my career. But it was also incredibly traumatic. More traumatic than I allowed myself to feel at the time and slowly but surely I have come to realise that I could not go through all that again.”
Never beaten Herb Elliott, who is with Marjorie Jackson, Betty Cuthbert and Freeman considered to be Australia’s greatest athlete, believes she will not be among the unfortunates who struggle to cope in the afterlife of elite sport.
“Certainly the IOC was showing a lot of concern for that kind of possible depression after the 2000 Games because there were so many athletes who were preparing themselves for those Games and who were going to retire,” said Elliott. "I wouldn’t want the public to think that everybody who retires gets depressed. Only a small number do.
"Whether Cathy is one of those I would very much doubt. She has an innate intelligence about her, much bigger than common sense. It’s almost a deep knowledge of herself. I think that somehow that will help her manage the situation better than most.
“Whatever services are available to help athletes who get into tough situations I’m sure are available to Cathy. There are enough people around her to recognise the signs.”
Chris Giannopoulos, her business manager at International Management Group, acknowledged: "It’s going to be an interesting phase of her life.
There’s a couple of things that probably hold her in good stead, one being she’s never been a person who craved the limelight so she won’t miss that part of it so much.
"She’ll miss running because she loved that, but at the same time she’s been out of it for a few years now so she’s had a bit of time to adjust to it.
“I think the biggest issue for her is to work out what she wants to do with herself. She’s 30 years of age and has plenty to offer.”
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