Interview with USATF sports psychologist Chris Stanley

The Summer Games begin in Paris on July 26. 10,500 athletes will compete for the coveted Olympic medals.

Ahead of Paris 2024, I spoke with Dr. Christopher Stanley, sports psychologist for Team USA Track & Field (USATF).

Dr. Stanley, a professor of sport and performance psychology at the University of Western States, has been involved with USATF for over a decade.

He served as the federation’s senior advisor at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where the United States topped the medal table in athletics with seven gold medals, 12 silver medals and seven bronze medals.

Here is the full interview with Dr. Stanley:

The 2021 Tokyo Olympics were mentally challenging for athletes as they took place in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. How will the Paris Olympics be different?

Stress levels decrease and there is less speculation like: “What if my test is positive the day before? What should I do?”

In Tokyo, the social aspect was very much missing. The family and spectators weren’t there, but I wouldn’t say many athletes benefited from that. So I think the return of the social aspect at the 2024 Games in Paris will be positive.

Of course, the more people, the better, the more suggestions, does not apply. That is not how it works. The athletes have to deal with it now and still need a lot of personal space and time. They have to work for that.

Noah Lyles and Simone Biles talked about their mental struggles during the Tokyo Games. How do you, as a doctor, help athletes to deal with this?

I think that athletes who have chosen to discuss their mental health issues more widely and publicly are doing so to counteract the stigma. It is certainly their right to do so if they want to do so on their own.

There is a lot of diversity within the sport of track and field and within Team USA that encompasses a wide variety of physical and mental health conditions. What we do as sports medicine staff is to support them with their health and well-being during the Games, but also with their performance enhancement needs while we are on site in Paris. We want to support the work that they are doing with their own medical providers or practitioners.

Athletes bring some mental health issues with them, but also the pressure and stress that comes with the Games that they have to deal with. These are elite athletes who are in a lot of high-performance situations, but the Olympics can still be next level.

Negative comments on social media are another challenge that athletes face today. How does this affect their mental wellbeing?

Athletes see a huge increase in followers, attention, and media requests almost immediately after making the Olympic team, so if this is something new for them, they have to deal with it.

This can be done through having conversations with athletes about where they draw boundaries and maintaining those boundaries… I always tell athletes that if they don’t stand up for their own space and their own boundaries, there are very few people who will stand up for them.

Just being strategic and thinking about how you’re going to limit your social media usage, and when you do have to engage or post, what you can plan in advance and exactly how that’s going to work, can be very efficient. Sometimes athletes set specific goals for themselves by weaning themselves off social media in the lead-up to games.

When I talk to athletes about advocating for their own space, energy and time, it can sometimes seem rude at first glance. It’s not that we’re not necessarily striving for mass understanding or empathy here.

But if you need space, if you need to unwind, that’s OK. There are respectful and mindful ways to set those boundaries… Protect your space and your time.

You have been part of USATF for 10 years. Can you tell me how the mental health care for athletes has changed over the years?

Since my original involvement with USATF, and particularly in this last quad when I had a little more exposure to the upper-division elite level, I think there has been an expansion of what we at USATF, along with our counterparts at USOPC (the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee), have been able to offer at high-performance competitions such as the World Championships and Olympic Games.

In the Sports Psychology Subcommittee, we try to find the sweet spot by establishing and maintaining some continuity of care through a particular quadrant. So we want athletes to progress to a certain level or see a leader…after the Olympics, the next therapist will come in for the next quadrant and set the path for the next quadrant until the next Olympics.

Continuity of care is important, but we also don’t want a senior physician to do quarter after quarter, because that would take 12 years and that’s a bit too much. We want a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives.

What role will you play in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris?

We put the athlete first. Once I am on site, I am available as a resource to support the athletes with their mental skills and their mental performance needs. I can say that I have had more to do in Tokyo than I have ever had as a professional with athletes before.

There are some athletes I’m already in dialogue with. I’ll be there and we’ll continue that. There are others whose needs will come up and we’ll be in touch with them once we’re there.

But I am available to work with the athletes on their regulatory skills, strategies, as well as their behavioral and mental skills and strategies, so that they can perform at their best in the lead-up to the competition and hopefully through to the final.

After that, we focus on a kind of processing framework that covers what happened, what went well, what didn’t, and maybe some initial planning for the aftermath.