Make an Athlete - Review of Soul by Jonathan Harding

Simone Biles considers the bronze medal on the balance beam at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics her most significant victory, especially the gold medals she has racked up as the most decorated Olympian gymnast in the world. 'story. Biles, who made the decision not to participate for most of the tournament for mental health reasons – the dreaded 'twisties' (a sense of dissociation in the air) meant she had to step back for her own safety – was the sole survivor of former American gym doctor Larry Nassar's abuse to compete in Tokyo, and only later revealed that his aunt died unexpectedly during the tournament.

Hours before Biles' decision to retire, tennis star Naomi Osaka was on the tennis court for her first tournament appearance since withdrawing from the French Open two months prior, citing her own mental health . The American took inspiration from Osaka, she said, and was happy to see a mostly favorable response, including from other Olympians.

"We are not just athletes," she told the BBC. “We are people at the end of the day and sometimes you just have to take a step back. […] I feel like a lot of the athletes speaking out have really helped.”

Earlier this year, Biles and Michael Phelps were interviewed saying they would not want their children to compete in the Olympics, citing physical, emotional and mental pressure and costs, and a worsening failing system .

One of the primary costs of a system where people seek to maximize profits to the exclusion of everything else is the protection of human beings, writes Jonathan Harding in Soul: Beyond the Athlete (Ockley Books , December 2021). Although the book focuses primarily on the world of football, it asks vital questions about sport and athletes as a whole.

Can you exercise at the highest level while taking care of and nurturing yourself as a person? Can you be a complete champion? If not, what does that mean for the examples we set, the heroes we idolize? How often do we learn what it costs to be in the high performance environments of the world? Is it even possible that performance and personal development really coexist in high-performance environments? How far is too far when it comes to numbers? Is winning at all costs worth it even if it includes the cost of your well-being or that of others?

Soul asks these questions while recognizing that there are many moving, interlocking pieces of the puzzle to consider, each with its own complex ecosystem. He accepts that change is complex and each part of the process requires a different approach. It deals with modern society and hyper focus on results; how "high performance high performance sport does not consciously do enough to develop human beings unless it contributes to performance, winning and/or business". their humanity.

"The question is not only what are we going to do about it, but also what does football, the sport as a whole, really want to represent?"

In Old English the soul was sawol, the "spiritual and emotional part of a person", an essence that many believe is what remains in the end, the core of anyone. But despite all the talk of the mindfulness, peace, and wellness industry that has sprung up around these buzzwords, what are we really doing on a deeper level?