Georgia Simmerling, Olympic medalist in Rio 2016 in cycling, has published a long text in which she recounts having suffered from eating disorders throughout her career, once once more highlighting the delicate issue of mental health in sport.
Georgia Simmerling has had an incredible athletic career. The 32-year-old Canadian, who was one of the great hopes of skiing when she was younger, then converted to track cycling. So much so that in 2016 she won an Olympic medal in the team event in Rio. After two Summer Games and two Winter Games under her belt, she retired following a final appearance at the Tokyo Olympics. An icon of Canadian sport who hid a painful secret behind her smile. In a text she published on the Canadian Olympic team website Georgia Simmerling recounts with emotion having suffered for the majority of her career from eating disorders, highlighting the still sometimes taboo subject of mental health in high-level sport.
“Most people see me as confident and strong-minded, a ‘feel good regarding herself’ woman,” she begins in her story. “But there are two sides to every story, and the tail side of my story is shame and self-destruction.” The young woman says she grew up never worrying regarding her appearance, but everything changed at 19, when she began “to become aware of (her) body”. At the time, she had just joined a program for the future talents of Canadian skiing, with the Vancouver Games in sight in 2010. “My weight was the right one, until I felt it was not no longer the case,” she recalls. “I was not happy with what I saw in the mirror. I thought I needed to lose some fat. It was a state of mind that seemed harmless at the time (…). Noticing it, however, quickly turned into a fixation: don’t eat fat and you won’t get fat. Injured during this program, she says she did everything to train more and more, “I was an elite athlete, conditioning is part of the job, but it had become an unhealthy obsession”.
While her team told her she was in pretty good shape, Georgia still wanted to “lose more weight”. On his return to training, “the staff saw that something was wrong. But I blamed the injury for my weight loss. I was angry that they were worried regarding me. I wanted to be alone,” she says. “The next five years were the worst,” says the young woman. She went on trips around the world, in hotels where the menus were fixed, where she had to hide that she was not well, eating only a few mouthfuls of pasta before “running to her room and eating only of fruits”. And then followingwards, “bulimia slowly, sporadically, crept into my life.” “After I ate to the point of feeling bad, the guilt would set in. Then I made myself sick because I was so unhappy. It was sad. I didn’t feel good regarding myself at all.” She explains that she managed to hide her troubles around her, when they got worse and worse, especially since she was living alone.
“Do not carry the burden of shame”
“When I switched to track cycling in 2015, I was getting a bit better at controlling my eating disorder. Partly because I got into the sport with an Olympic goal in mind,” she recalls. She writes that she made an appointment with a psychologist one day, but did not manage to confide in herself, only returning to seek help following meeting her partner Stéphanie Labbé, a Canadian goalkeeper who became an Olympic football champion in Tokyo. “I told him my story. After a relapse, I felt so ashamed that I decided to bare myself”. It is thanks to her listening and her love that Georgia gradually managed to get out of it. If she recounts this difficult ordeal today, it is to say “that the problems of image disorders do not only happen to athletes whose bodies are exposed. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to any athlete in any sport.” “I hope my story will resonate with those who are struggling. I hope this will encourage someone to speak up earlier than me, not to carry the burden of shame, guilt or hate,” she concludes.
More and more top athletes are sharing their stories to highlight mental health. Stéphanie Labbée, Georgia’s companion, has herself decided to end her contract with PSG, which was due to end next June, in order to focus on her mental health. At the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, the American Simone Biles withdrew for the majority of the events, explaining that she suffered from a psychological block and was no longer able to withstand the pressure. Tennis player Naomi Osaka, Frenchman Lucas Pouille, swimmer Michael Phelps and skier Lindsey Vonn have all spoken of their difficulties in the past.