Five-time Olympic gold medalist, Missy Franklin, struggled through 2016. That was the opening of her message to 75 young women at the LEAD Sports Summit in Austin, Texas, an event designed to empower female athletes in academics, sport and life.
Kara Lynn Joyce, Madisyn Cox, Elizabeth Beisel, Missy Franklin, and Eva Fabian at LEAD Sports Summit
Franklin hide the battle from the media during the Olympic year, suffering through it with her familiar smile. Franklin explained that two months before the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials she was diagnosed with depression, insomnia, anxiety and an eating disorder. Franklin was hitting a low when the world and swim fans expected her to rise up. Despite the challenges, she performed, winning another gold medal, and stepping up as leader and mentor on the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team. Still, her personal problems remained, further exacerbated by shoulder problems that required surgery. After a break from the pool this past summer, Missy’s back, training with the Cal Golden Bears men’s team under coach Dave Durden. See the video above and learn more about Franklin’s journey and what she’s learned in the process.
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This is a Gold Medal Media production presented by SwimOutlet.com. Host Gold Medal Mel Stewart is a 3-time Olympic medalist and the co-founder of SwimSwam.com, a Swimming News website.
I didn’t know she was faking it. Am somewhat surprised. She looks a lot more authentic now though, I can see her depression in her eyes and tone now.
Happy for you Missy! No one knows what it’s like to handle the pressure you have been under except for other elite athletes. Keep doing you!!
I wish Missy nothing but the best and hugely respect her courage here. I want to also give HUGE props (we can’t give enough) to Allison Schmitt. Schmitty’s brave openness about her mental health challenges and mourning the loss of her cousin through ADVOCACY for athletes and mental health support inspired Phelps to open up about his struggles, and I believe, in turn inspired Missy. Despite all the ugly and insensitive response, this is a major testimony from someone with the media reach and ‘role model’ position of a figure like Missy, especially for young girls. Have some respect.
Annoyed that my post in support of Missy and the complexity of mental health challenges for elite athletes was not published, while so many toxic posts were published.
Hey there is a long medical literature describing a propensity for mood disorders in competitive swimming dating back to the 1980s. Of course the vegetative signs of depression are mimicked by exhaustion from training, perhaps confounding some of these prior studies. I think that the following article from Canada describing depression associated with failure or fear of failure in hyper-elite athletes might be more pertinent to this posting.
http://journals.lww.com/cjsportsmed/Abstract/2013/07000/The_Prevalence_of_Failure_Based_Depression_Among.5.aspx
Depression is common in swimmers, it seems. All that time facing the black line on the bottom of the pool likely takes its toll. Ian Crocker was quite frank about his battles with mood, which were ultimately successful. Missy is a tough competitor and I’ve… Read more »
I think I remember the Ian Crocker story correctly, My apologies if I got that one wrong.
Thanks for this post, Jay. You are right. See here: https://www.families.com/blog/focus-on-the-olympics-ian-crocker-2008-swimming-hopeful
Phelps, Lochte, Franklin, Schmidt and probably a lot more than we know about. Coaches drive these athletes to and over the edge. When I first heard that Phelps didn’t take a day off for more than 4 years I shook my head. Any decent coach or parent should never do that to an athlete and are more guilty than Michael when he crashed after winning all of the golds in the Olympics. We have to bring back some perspective in this sport. We have high schoolers swimming two a days and falling asleep in class. We have Division 3 programs (emphasizing student and not athlete) starting in early October and doing two a days for a national meet in the… Read more »
It is good she did not compete this year. Swimming is 99.9% practice, 0.1% racing. Gotta love the daily grind for its own sake.
I feel bad for missy. The pressure to perform was overwhelming. Hope she can get a real life. This is a message to all families of NCAA D1 programs. These programs are meat grinders, the swimmers are put through hell. I can say without question that my childs personality has been changed for the worse by swimming. Club swimming was fun, college swimming is a business. The constant expectations of “faster”, “more”, the pressures of recruiting, the 6 day a week practicing (all athletes are forced to lie on their compliance sheets, NCAA says 20 hrs per week but it is more like 30). The constant pressure to “make NCAA’s”. The hazing, drinking and drugs. ( yes they just start… Read more »
The coaches have a lot on the line with the performance of their swimmers.
I always thought the Skip Kenney suspension (for removing the names of swimmers he didn’t like from the Stanford Top Swims list) was the epitome of the dark side of college swim coaching. Maybe Skip wasn’t always like that, but he got exposed at the end of his career.for his hubris.
You mean the same Skip Kenney who told Matt Biondi he didn’t have what it takes to compete at the DI level?
Yes. Swimmers are forced to lie on the compliance sheets. Coaches intentionally break NCAA rules. There is no oversight to protect swimmers. Swimmers are VERY afraid to speak up because they will lose their scholarships and worse. Many college swimmers leave teams even though they loved swimming and many swimmers transfer to get away from abusive coaches. College swimming can be brutal.
I’m sorry your child had that experience. I had a not so great college coach, but still had an experience I look back on with fondness. The current coach of my college team focuses on making things fun (and their performance has improved significantly at a Power 5 school), so not all programs are meat grinders. As for the hazing, drinking, and drugs, the team I was on drank regularly together, but if anyone did drugs, it was on their own. We also had members of our team who didn’t drink, and they weren’t ostracized for it. Unfortunately, I think your child ended up at a school that wasn’t a good fit for them, but you are making some significant… Read more »