Rooting for Mental Health Heroes at the 2026 Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics has brought us unforgettable moments—Miracle on Ice, Torvill and Dean’s Bolero, the Jamaican bobsled team. They also showed heartbreak: crashes on ski runs, falls on the ice, and injuries that played out in front of millions. These highs and lows shape Olympic history, but they also take a real toll on athletes’ mental health.

A survey of Olympic and Paralympic athletes in the UK found that nearly one in four reported high or very high psychological distress, and almost one in five reported poor well-being. Winter sport athletes reported higher levels of distress than summer athletes, suggesting the Winter Games environment may carry unique risks.

Opening up about mental health is becoming increasingly common among athletes. Gold medal snowboarder Chloe Kim told Women’s Health recently that after the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing she was left “feeling depleted” and contemplated “leaving the sport.”

“‘Snowboarding felt like a really long relationship,’ she says, likening it to a hot-and-cold boyfriend. ‘The good days were really good, and the bad days were really bad.’”

“And so, with the help of therapy, Chloe has been working to establish a healthier relationship with herself and her sport. ‘The goal right now,’ she says, ‘is just to love every step of the way.’”

Taking time allowed her to show up ready for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Despite separating her shoulder during a training run in early January, Kim said “she’s good to go, ‘just’ having torn the labrum in her shoulder.”

The first woman to land a triple axel in competition

Amber Glenn, a three-time U.S. champion figure skater who competed in the Olympics in Italy continues to speak out about her mental health challenges.

Glenn has always been open about her mental health. She has shared how being judged – both for her appearance to her athletic style of skating – has taken a toll on her.

“Mental health in elite sports is something that has become more of a topic over the years,” she told NBC Sports, “but still is not talked about enough in my opinion.”
Glenn has continued to be open on social media about her mental health, trying to bridge the gap for other athletes.

This can happen to any athlete

In a recent conversation with Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin and gymnast Simone Biles, posted on the Olympics website, Biles, who withdrew from events at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in part because of her mental health said “I was in the best shape of my life [in Tokyo]. I thought I was mentally and physically [ready], but that’s certainly not the case.”

Mikaela Shiffrin, the 30-year-old, three-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion, shares a similar Olympic history with Biles, not finishing multiple events in Beijing in 2022. She also suffered a devastating crash in late 2024 that left her with a serious abdominal injury and what was later diagnosed as PTSD. In an essay in The Player’s Tribune, she talked about the psychological toll, in the form of flashbacks, fear, and a loss of connection with her body, that proved difficult to overcome.

In the years since, both athletes have talked openly—and with each other—about their mental health and are credited with changing much of the conversation around sport and mental health.

In recent years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is paying special attention to the mental health of participants. Beginning in 2023, with their Mental Health Action Plan, a comprehensive roadmap designed to promote mental well-being in sport, the IOC has provided clear structure to organizers to safeguard participants before, during and after competition, and offers athletes practical techniques to manage the unique pressures they face in their individual sport.

At Milano Cortina 2026, athletes and their entourage members were able to take advantage of a set of services designed to promote mental well-being, prevent issues before they arise and provide care whenever needed.

“[Fans] can’t relate to the wins, the World Cups, the gold medals,” said Biles in the article on the Olympics website, “but they can relate to the emotions and mental health that we go through.”

Biles went on to her third Olympic Games in Paris and left with 4 more medals, 3 of them gold. She had advice for Shiffrin: “You’re your most powerful when you listen to you,” Biles said. “I just did what I knew was right. And in the end, whatever the picture was going to be, it was going to write itself.”

Shiffrin came ready for Milano Cortina 2026, her fourth Olympics. She rebuilt her confidence thanks to therapy and consistent training.

“The perfect day on the mountain isn’t a race; it’s a training run,” she said in an Olympics website article. “It’s joy. It’s clarity. It’s just me, doing what I love.”

Interested in this topic? Read more:
Pressure to Perform: Anxiety Amongst Athletes
“The Best is Yet to Come”: Moving Forward After Significant Life Events