Episode 14: Life After Sport - How Can We Help Athletes Transition?
An athlete’s career isn’t a long one. How do we make sure athletes are prepared for the next stage of their lives?
With special guests Bianca Chatfield and Matti Clements.
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All good things must come to an end. For athletes, that end can be sudden and far sooner than hoped. After years of intense dedication and sacrifice, the average career of a high performance athlete lasts no more than a few years. So what comes next? And how can we help them prepare for the emotional, physical and financial toll that comes with that final whistle call?
Today, host Professor Sam Robertson speaks to Bianca Chatfield and Matti Clements. Hitting us with the athlete perspective, Bianca is a former Australian Diamonds netballer and Vice Captain, with a slew of gold and silver Commonwealth Game and World Championship medals under her belt. Matti sits on the other side, as a qualified psychologist and the Director of People, Wellbeing and Engagement at the Australian Institute of Sport. Over the last two decades, she's worked with myriad elite athletes and sporting codes to develop effective support systems.
Together Sam, Bianca and Matti explore what a successful transition looks like and where the responsibility lies in making that happen.
Full Episode Transcript
14. Life After Sport - How Can We Help Athletes Transition?
Intro
[00:00:00] Sam Robertson: Growing up, a career in sport is the dream for so many of us. Whether it's getting drafted to our favourite team or being selected to represent our country at the Olympics - we rightfully hold up these examples as goals worthy of dedicating one's youth towards achieving. But despite the extreme dedication and sacrifice it takes to get to the top, spending even a decade there is the exception rather than the norm, in just about any sport. With the average team sport career normally lasting no more than a few years, and many sports unable to support athletes on a full-time basis, the reality is that the typical time an athlete spends performing at the highest level represents a very short fraction of their life.
[00:00:39] So how can athletes best plan and prepare for what comes next, especially given they may not be able to control when they'll reach the finishing line? Fortunately many sports now have formalised programs and athlete associations to assist with this process, and increased professionalisation has meant that athlete care of all types has risen to higher levels than ever before. But not all sports are equal and athletes from commercially popular and well-resourced sports undoubtedly receive more support when it comes to transitioning. And even with the very best programs in place, the unique set of emotional, physical, and financial impacts inflicted by that escapable early expiration date can still be felt strongly.
[00:01:20] Because when the crescendo you've been building towards your whole life suddenly ends, with so much time still on the clock, there will be major changes to your environment and accompanying support mechanisms. So where do the responsibilities lie in ensuring that athletes successfully transition into the next phase of their life? Especially given this 'success' can differ in meaning substantially from person to person.
[00:01:43] I'm Sam Robertson, and this is One Track Mind.
Guest One: Bianca Chatfield
[00:02:06] Sam Robertson: My first guest is Bianca Chatfield. Bianca is one of Australia's best known netballers, having performed at the elite level on the international stage for well over a decade and compiling 59 test caps for the Australian Diamonds. Her accolades include multiple World and Commonwealth Games gold medals, as well as considerable domestic success winning multiple championships with the Melbourne Vixens.
[00:02:29] Bianca's journey post-competitive sport is perhaps equally interesting - she's a qualified teacher, has performed as a TV host for Super Netball and Women's Football, and in 2018 appeared on the hit reality show The Block. Bianca also co-authored a book, 'Every Girl Needs A Plan', which seeks to empower women to find their passion, navigate through the fear of change and nail down a game plan to make it happen. She's also co-developed a netball high performance academy, through which she provides high-performance coaching to a group of young women who share the desire of playing at the elite level. Bianca, thanks for joining me.
[00:03:05] Bianca Chatfield: I'm really excited to be talking to you.
[00:03:07] Sam Robertson: Great! It's always nice when people are excited as opposed to the opposite. Now, before we get into this really complex and interesting topic, I wanted to start with, perhaps an easier question for you, although you might have to cast your mind back to when you retired here. Now you enjoyed a career much longer than, I guess, most people are afforded, it seems like about 15 years or so and retired in 2015, which is six years ago if you can believe that. Now I'm mindful I'm taking you back six years here, but I thought we'd explore some of the main emotions or feelings or things that happened both before, during, and after you transitioned into that retirement period of your career. And obviously I'm interested in your own experience, but also maybe some people that you've associated with or played with along the journey.
[00:03:52] Bianca Chatfield: Yeah, absolutely. It is an interesting question because, I mean, as much as it was six years ago, it's still so vivid to me, those feelings. I suppose I made the decision to retire probably a year before I actually did. So I retired from the Australian netball team in 2014, and I wanted to give myself one more year of playing with my Melbourne club and not necessarily to enjoy just another year without all the pressure, but more so to kind of do a handover to the next generation in the leadership space and just, you know, the team that we built.
[00:04:25] And as much as I wanted all of that to go to plan, my body did not allow me to do that at all. And by the end I could barely play. I was that broken. I was 33. So for me, there was a lot of, I guess, the emotions around it, I was desperate to not feel like I'd lost something. I thought I'd been fortunate enough to play for so long and I'd got to this point in my career where I knew I was ready to go, I was excited about opportunities outside of actually being an athlete, but I knew people before me who had suffered and felt like a real loss. And, you know, it's like something, a part of your life has completely died and you've got to start all over again.
[00:05:04] And I don't know why I always had that in the back of my head that, like, I don't want to feel like that, I don't want to feel like that. And of course, I did feel like that. And I went through this moment in time where you're excited about what's next, but you're also, you don't know, like there's so many unknowns about what's going to happen.
[00:05:21] And so I was really probably disappointed that I didn't finish in the way that I was wanting to, and that my body had let me down, and I was just really quite lost and I felt really isolated for a good chunk of time. And even though as a team athlete, like a team sport athlete, you're fortunate to have so many support systems around you because you have your teammates around you, and so many of them were making a big fuss of me retiring and there was lots of celebrating and lots of great moments like that, that I look back on, but it was just all of a sudden. The team then moves forward and you are just out going, okay, what am I going to do next?
[00:06:00] And I had all these great plans and I had work opportunities, and I certainly wasn't lost for things to do, but I think it was just this real, the loss of the connections. And it's not like the world stops when you retire, the world keeps going and the teams keep going and they keep preparing for what's next, and it's about you finding your place in the world. So the loss of connection was a huge thing for me.
[00:06:21] And then I resented the fact that I wanted to step away from the sport and not necessarily... I needed a break, I needed a rest, I didn't want to spend all my weekends, you know, at netball all the time. And so I really had this, my first year out, I remember feeling really guilty that I didn't want to be around netball, and the girls wanted me to, and they wanted me to come to the games and I was like, ah, I couldn't think of anything worse, I just want to get away. But yeah, it was this overwhelming guilt that I kept feeling that, like, I'm not doing the right thing by the team. Like you feel when you are an athlete and you've got to do the right thing by the team.
[00:06:54] Sam Robertson: Yeah. Is that something that's passed now? You'll go to matches now? Has it got better as time's gone on?
[00:07:00] Bianca Chatfield: Yeah, absolutely. But it did take a bit of a circuit breaker for me to realise, probably, what I was feeling and talk to people about what I was feeling and understanding that there was a huge amount of normality in that too. And I think I had a good network of other athletes who are similar age in other sports who had retired at similar times. You know, everything that they went through and they would talk about, you go through without realising it. And one was, you know, your first year out, you're so busy and all these different things you want to do and you kind of are going out there enjoying that time. And then that second year out, that's probably when you feel it the most. You feel the like, oh, hang on a minute, like I'm no longer the new kid that's retired and everybody's like, oh come and commentate, come and do this. And you know, all these opportunities coming everywhere.
[00:07:46] It's that second year where you get quite overwhelmed by just the sense of loss of it all. And you're starting afresh and what's going to fill the void of that adrenaline rush that you get as an athlete, whether it's pushing your body to the extreme or celebrating the highs or even the lows and trying to dig yourself out of it as a group. That's what all of a sudden you feel like you're on your own all the time and that you don't have your teammates there to laugh your way through it or to pick you up when you're down.
[00:08:13] But definitely having a network of people to talk to who are going through or had been through similar, you start to realise, oh, okay, this is actually a normal part of the process you've got to go through. And as with most things, time often heals a lot of it, but also the perspective, you change your perspective and you start to really be grateful of the good times and not necessarily focused so much on what you don't have anymore.
[00:08:36] You've really articulated there's so many parts of the athlete experience. It's not just about the competition. It's about the adrenaline rush. In team sports it's about the camaraderie or connection with the team, and maybe even the structure at times and the competition, all those different things. You know, it also occurs to me that, that can't all be replaced. We've all seen different athletes try and maintain parts of that after they finished by finding another adrenaline rush or continuing to compete at a participation level, but it can't all be replaced, can it? You can't replace a lot.
[00:09:07] Bianca Chatfield: No, no. And even the thing about the structure is a huge one. You know, someone telling you what to do at every part of your day, you need to be here, and so everyone keeps you accountable. Even just the support network, like the medical team that you have around you - you're not feeling well, you can call a doctor straight away or you see the doctor at training. You kind of lose all of those layers of protection that you had around you.
[00:09:30] And for me, the structure, I was quite an organised person and being a female athlete, I often had other things on the go anyway while I was playing. So the structure, I was okay at trying to fill that. I found the training part, like wanting to stay fit and healthy cause you know how important that is, but every time I would go to a training session, I would do things like an F45 or something like that where you'd absolutely flog your body cause that's all you actually knew, is how to push yourself to the extreme. And when people would say, go and do yoga or go and do something different which actually looks after your body, I found that really hard too, to go, oh, is this like, does my body get any benefits from doing this? And so a real slower pace of life.
[00:10:14] I had to teach myself and understand the importance of, it's okay to slow down and not go a hundred miles an hour and get your heart rate zooming, and, you know, feel spent at the end of every session. That's not what your body actually enjoys when it's had enough of being an athlete. And probably finding the adrenaline rush in different ways and understanding that you'll never replicate that same adrenaline rush.
[00:10:37] But I started to feel that like nervousness and excitement and that kind of sink or swim like attitude when I was working in the media. So doing, you know, commentary and being able to work on the commentary for netball and doing live TV, I started to go, oh, I get those same butterflies before you go on air and I started to realise that was actually why I enjoy doing that so much, because it was actually similar to being out there playing. And you still have to prepare, you still have to spend your week, like, researching, it's just a very different way of doing it. But yeah, I started to realise, oh, actually, that's why I like working in the media because I like that it scares me and that I've got to be prepared otherwise I won't perform very well. And if you don't perform well in the media, then there's plenty of other people they can use. So yeah, I really enjoyed that pressure that it put on me, it was sort of replacing that adrenaline rush.
[00:11:27] Sam Robertson: I want to pick up a bit on that, but before I do, I want to come back to something you said right at the start, which was your desire to do a handover in your final year of competition and unfortunately, parts of your body not being able to allow you to do that as well as you would like. But you also mentioned that you're excited for new opportunities, which kind of made me realise that you obviously had put some planning or organisation in place for what was coming next. Now, is that something you always had or was that something that you feel just as a part of your personality, or was it something that, you know, the benefit of you having a long career was that gave you time to work on that?
[00:12:03] Bianca Chatfield: Yeah it's probably a combination of everything. My first coach was a huge mentor of mine and still is, but I was 16 when I first started playing at the elite level and so I was still in school doing year 11 and 12, and I had coaches and one particular coach, who her name was Joyce Brown, and she was retiring towards the end of her coaching career. She was at me about the whole time about how important as a female athlete it is that you have a career outside. You can't rely on it, it's probably never going to pay you enough money, you need to have something else. So while I was doing year 11 and 12, she was talking to my VCE coordinators making sure that, yes, I would train hard, yes, I could play on the weekends and travel with the team, but only if I kept up certain standards at school.
[00:12:51] So, at the time I hated that control that everyone had on my life, but I actually now really appreciate that she just instilled that in me, that even if you don't know what you want to do, just go to uni and do something that you enjoy and tick that off so you've got that. So always have a plan B. Plan A is being an athlete and being the best athlete you can be, but have a plan B. So I think I just was very fortunate to have her around me very early. And so my plan B was I studied human movement and secondary teaching at school, cause I thought, oh well, I love sport, I can always be a PE teacher. And I did a bit of that part-time while I was playing, but that was always in my head, that's your backup plan. If things fail, if something happens and you're not an athlete anymore, you've got that as your backup plan.
[00:13:36] And I don't mind the teaching element, but I was never going to love it and do it as a full-time career the whole time. But I felt that really helped me in that no matter what decision I've made in my life, and I don't teach now, but I work in this freelance kind of world of media, sport and in the leadership space, in the back of my head, every time I take a risk, I'm like, oh well, I've always got my teaching degree. Like I can always go back and do that and earn money. And I think that's been really helpful in helping me take risks, knowing that I have that backup if I need it. And it wasn't easy to tick it all off, but netball was a sport that allowed you and supported you and made sure that if you had commitments, they would find a way to try and work with that if they could.
[00:14:16] Sam Robertson: There's a question around that I think, you mentioned the female athletes, but also I suppose any semi-professional sport as well. I'm interested in whether being involved in one of those sports that's not say a football code or one of the large American pro sports, for example, you're almost forced into, well not forced into it, but it's yeah as you mentioned there, Joyce Brown encouraged you strongly to have those other interests because presumably she knew that you were going to need them. I wonder whether those sports are actually better, a sport like netball, is better set up for encouraging athletes to develop those skillsets for retirement or for transitioning to the next stage of their career even, than the pro sports. I mean, I think those pro US sports are getting better at it, and I think in Australia the AFL, NRL, are the examples that come to mind. But, yeah, I wonder whether they're better set up for encouraging those skills post-retirement.
[00:15:11] Bianca Chatfield: Yeah, it's a real catch 22, because I also worked a lot with our players association and I really wanted to make sure that the sport had better conditions around it, better resources around it, you know, medical support, whatever it was, so that we could. We were training like professional athletes, but we didn't have the same resources around us. And even though towards the end of my career I'd probably say I was, professionally, netball was my main focus, the thing for me was always that we had a blocked out window of time. So when I was playing, it was between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM on a weekday, we were not allowed to train. So the players association fought really hard to make sure that there was this blocked out daytime window so that people had the opportunity to go and go to uni or go and work or do something and teams couldn't hijack that hours of time.
[00:16:03] It used to frustrate us because as we got more professional and we were earning more money and we didn't have to do as much outside, we used to think, oh, but it's just much easier if you're training at 10:00 AM, cause then you get the rest of the night off. But that was something that netball have always been very strong on and I really get it now, that that's why it's important. And I think the times have come in from about 10 to 4 to about 10 to 2 now, but still there's this real emphasis on making sure that if you want to do something else you can, and there's an importance that you really should. And now there's support around players in terms of welfare support that encourage girls to understand what their passions might be away from actually being an athlete.
[00:16:41] And I think during the hard times, like I was dropped from the Australian team and went through some tough times personally with my career, it wasn't going in the direction that I wanted it to, and what I realise now in hindsight was that the fact that I had another interest and other things to go and do with my time, it actually helped me heal quicker from the disappointment that I was going through in my sport, and allowed me to have just a bit of a different perspective. Like knowing that when you go into another workplace or when you go into another world where netball's not the main focus, that like no one actually cares, no one cares about being dropped. But when you're in that netball world, you think everyone's looking at you and everyone's judging you and everyone's like thinking, oh, she must be really upset. And yeah, actually that really did help me, having something outside of it along the way, just to get over whatever I was going through and then find the energy to get back into it.
[00:17:32] Sam Robertson: It's a great story. Really illuminating for me, not being an athlete, and I'm sure it will be for the listeners as well. You talked about players associations in there. I think this is an interesting question, the role that they play. They've obviously become more prevalent in most sports and probably more powerful as well, I think, as a general rule. But it has interested me as someone that's been involved in some of the decision-making in some sports, that sometimes the good intentions, even though they are good intentions, actually don't have the desired outcome. And you kind of gave somewhat of an example there. I think it's quite tricky though, in some cases, because increasing revenue in a sport, for example, which often increases maybe sharing data on athletes and things that might be private to them are, not necessarily compatible with things like increasing the health and welfare of the athlete. And so, you know, that's a very tricky question to solve, and I'm not sure what I'm asking you here, but yeah, I don't know where that space goes in the future. I think probably the best solution is to have as many stakeholders represented in those players associations as possible. But do you have a thought on that?
[00:18:38] Bianca Chatfield: You're right. There's a really fine balance with it all. That, you know, for us it was about, you had Netball Australia who are the governing body who are trying to run the sport and they've only got so much money to give, and then you'd have all of the teams who had their own interests as well, and then you'd have the players. One thing that I realised though, is that a lot of the time the money was like the side factor. Yeah, of course we'd love more money, but if it's not there, it's not there. There's not much you can fight over. But what really we tried to encourage - the older players were the ones that kind of got me involved and I realised the impact that they had had - was sitting around a table with the CEOs of all the clubs and the head honchos of the governing body, actually giving them the understanding of what it's like on the road and what it's like for the youngest player in the team compared to the oldest player who might be financially quite stable, but the youngest player in the team who might only be earning $10,000 a year, and they've still got to do the same hours and the same amount of time they can't afford if they don't have a sponsor, they can't afford to be buying, you know, runners and equipment to play.
[00:19:42] And it was about more making sure that everyone understood what it was like for the teams and for the players involved in the teams, cause the CEOs aren't travelling with you, they're not on the road, and so a lot of the time that just gets missed. Not deliberately, a lot of the time it's just because it's not part of their day to day. So that's what I found was the best place that we could play as players in that players association was having a voice at the table and getting people to understand the conditions we were in and what we needed.
[00:20:08] I mean, when I first started, if you needed an MRI on an injury, you would have to pay for that yourself. And it was the team physios deciding, oh, you better go and have an MRI to see if you can play this week. And you were thinking, oh, that's $350 that I've got to come up with. And so, you know, it was things like that, that we eventually got covered and that all got paid for. And they were huge wins for us - far, far more than earning more money playing the game.
[00:20:33] Sam Robertson: That's a great example, and of course there's all sorts of things that are running through your head at the time, like do I really need this MRI? And how important is it to have? Obviously having to not having to worry about that is a big load off and I'm sure if I gave you time, there'd be 50 examples like that, that you could come up with.
[00:20:48] Bianca Chatfield: Yeah even one I remember, this was before my time but the older girls told me, they used to when they travel on a weekend to play, they might be going from Melbourne to Sydney, they would take a microwave on the plane with them so that they could heat up food when they got to the hotel, because they weren't getting enough money for lunch and they thought that's a way they can all save money. And I was mortified because we didn't have those conditions when I was playing. But to see how far that had come by the time I'd finished the game, you know, it was quite remarkable. And they're the little wins, I think, along the way that you think, oh, well, you know, we've come a long way as a sport. We might not be completely there, but we've certainly come a long way.
[00:21:25] Sam Robertson: And long may it continue and improve!
[00:21:28] Bianca Chatfield: Exactly!
[00:21:29] Sam Robertson: So just coming back to some of the strategies that you've put in place yourself or you've seen, now you've talked about a few of them already just as we've been conversing, but I'm keen for you to really highlight the ones that you've seen work well for yourself and also maybe others as well. And you talked about studying as well and having multiple options. I mean, your post-career portfolio of activities is as diverse as it comes. Authorship, media, keynote speaking, TV star as well. How much of that was planned versus good networking, serendipity? I think for me, as an athlete, pretty quickly you learn that failure actually happens quite often, and that things don't necessarily always go your way, you know, injuries happen and you've got to get yourself back up. So I think that taking a risk attitude is really important for athletes, especially once they do start to finish, in that it's okay to try different things and see what might suit you. And if it doesn't suit you that's okay too. Or you're not good at it, that's okay too. Because we are used to that rollercoaster ride and, I'm going to say normal people but referring to not athletes, that's a lot harder to come by. And the networking element I think was really important, but also just being able to see for me what past athletes had been able to do, what past netballers did.
[00:22:47] Bianca Chatfield: There was just this entrepreneurial spirit, I think, amongst female athletes, and that's what I could see. They would do multiple different things. And one year they'd be doing this, the next year they'd be doing this, and that was okay for them. And because I could see that, then in my own head I started to plan that too, just thinking, okay, well, I'll just have a go at this and see if I'm good at it. And so I guess I had this attitude where I just have a go at things and I don't know where that really came from other than just seeing other people do that before me.
[00:23:17] I also think a lot of it was a bit serendipitous as well in that being able to have a go at things, I'd always, I knew what I loved and I knew I wanted to follow what I loved. And during my sporting career, it was in a number of leadership positions. And I just felt this burning desire inside that I just loved having that pressure on me and being able to make a difference in a younger person's life. And I had a lot of people around me who were saying that you've got to follow what you actually feel good doing. Don't feel like you have to go back into teaching as soon as you retire because that's what you know and that's what you're qualified to do. And so, again, it was the network of people in that support group around me that really did keep me going.
[00:23:59] And I'm not going to, nothing was ever perfect. I certainly made many mistakes along the way. And probably, I went into commentary the first year out because someone asked me to have a go at it and I was like, oh yeah, sure. And I realised how overwhelming that was to then go from being the athlete where you've got to worry about one game a week to try and talking about the game where you've got to watch every game. I was watching more netball than I'd ever watched in my life and I hated it. And then I was traveling all weekend as well, because that's what you have to do as commentators. You're not just in your own home state. I said yes to that way too quickly. And as much as I had an enjoyment for it, I was so over it, it really made me just not love the sport. And so I had a couple of years off that because it really wasn't serving me how I wanted to. I wanted to get myself a life away from being an athlete and not just spend my time at the courts again.
[00:24:49] So I think it's a combination of everything that you said. It's the network, it's also sort of planning, but also being okay if things didn't happen the way I thought they would. And having that team of support people around you, that when things weren't going okay, I was okay being a bit vulnerable about it too, that I was a bit lost. And I certainly wouldn't do that with everyone who would know me, but I would do it with certain people where they could pick me up like they did when I was an athlete too. They could kind of pick me up, help me get back on my pathway, but it's really hard to do it on your own without people around you that understand you and that you're probably willing to let in to know who you really are and how you're feeling about things.
[00:25:26] But I still feel like I'm on that journey and adventure and I've been retired for six years now. And that I'm finding my way, try something, might not work, figure out how I can try something else. And my backup, that plan B of like, well I can always go back to teaching and get a full-time job and, you know, have a career that way is probably what helps me take those little risks.
[00:25:46] Sam Robertson: A long way from a psychologist, but the thing that you said at the end there, to me sounds like very sensible advice in terms of not seeing it as a beginning and end, it's just a continuation of your journey and you're still involved in things, it's just in a different way than you were when you were on the court.
[00:26:01] It's interesting in that respect, because I know I see when I speak to some really young athletes, the, you will have seen this yourself I'm sure, they're 100% committed to either being drafted into a sport or getting professional contract, and I think if you ask them at that stage, and I'm talking about a 16 year old athlete, like you were when you started, if you ask them to even think about the notion of preparing or at least doing something to think about their post-career time, they'd look at you very strangely, I'm sure.
[00:26:32] So it is an interesting psychological experiment, I suppose about when do you start thinking about that or even consciously planning for it, what does that do to your psyche? Particularly in those sports that require, you know, just massive amounts. And I'm thinking about probably some of the endurance sports here, where the very notion of thinking about something other than training could be seen as, you psychologically having one step out the door. It's an interesting question, I think, and I don't know the answer to it.
[00:26:56] Bianca Chatfield: Well, yeah, I would go through moments like that too, where you feel like you are not doing your sport or your athlete life justice, because you are focusing on something else and everyone tells you, you gotta be a hundred percent in mentally, physically, emotionally. And yeah, you do feel guilty when you are not. Oh, I'm not training, I'm not recovering, I'm not stretching. You do feel like that. And I think I'm seeing, even in my sport, I'm seeing it, it's getting harder and harder for the girls to have the time to set aside for other things.
[00:27:25] And especially if you're, and I did go through this stage too in my career, where if you're a fringe player or you're a fringe athlete, you know, you might make a team or you're right on that edge of making it or not, that's the time where you're so desperate to get in and you'll do anything. You don't have the mental capacity to be doing a lot outside of athlete life. It probably would help you if you could do it, but you don't and you need to be a hundred percent in. And I think that's the hardest place to be in when you're in that kind of middle ground. If you are the most dominant and the best player in your sport, and team selection is never a question for you, that was never me, but if you're like that, I feel like that's where you can relax a little bit. You're not relaxing in terms of your training and your performance, but you can have a look around and you have opportunities being thrown at you. But it's yeah, those are middle athletes I think that really, really do struggle to find that balance. And I don't even know what the answer is, to be honest, about how you navigate that space.
[00:28:27] I mean, I had no choice financially cause I had to try and earn money, but I think I started to realise that, oh, when I'm in this world, actually people don't really care about the sport as much and you can kind of relax a little bit to get yourself back in. But yeah, it was only certain times that I had that luxury of feeling okay about it. But yeah, it's a really tough one and especially individual sports, I think that's even another layer of difficulty in trying to have that balance and that time, because you can't necessarily afford it if your sport needs you to train six hours, seven hours a day, You just want to be asleep, no doubt, recovering, whenever you've got that time, not, you know, trying to study.
[00:29:06] Bianca Chatfield: But I guess then the focus becomes the networks that you can build with the people that you have around you and the people that potentially sponsor your sport, or, you know, having a business mentor maybe, that's not necessarily in your face right now, but giving you the opportunity to just chat about what you might want to do when you do finish and maybe planting the seed about, you know, some work experience you could do. Maybe the studying is a bit too overwhelming for some people. And as we know, like, yes, degrees are really important, but there's also so many other avenues people can take to in terms of setting up careers post-sport.
[00:29:39] Sam Robertson: We talk about this ad nauseum on the show and listeners probably get sick of it, but I constantly am reminded of the differences between sport. I think we sometimes lump athletes all in as athletes, that irrespective of the sport, but I'm constantly reminded as to how different it is. And the example you gave then, you know, of a coach, I was thinking of a coach and how diverse their skill sets need to be, to be able to relate to all those different athletes. You know, the well-entrenched senior athlete versus the fringe one. But then you mentioned the individual sport where it's, as you mentioned, they may not have any time at all, but they may have the ability to have a single contact point with a coach, which can be good and bad as we know.
[00:30:17] Now, just before I let you go, I wanted to ask you one more question just around the future of this area, and I suppose the responsibility of helping athletes transition as well. I think, as a general rule, sports have a better understanding of the athlete in that kind of socio-cultural element of it, the influence that their family, their partners, their friends have on them and just what they're doing outside of competition. And that's partly because we've just got better, but they can probably measure what the athlete's doing at 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a little bit better as well. Where's the responsibility lie? I think you'll probably say it's a joint responsibility of everyone, but you know, what could be done better? Where do you hope this goes? We're seeing organisations largely get better at, career planning, athlete, transition programs. The IOC has a very high profile one now. We've already talked about the players associations as well. What would you do again, maybe yourself even, if you had your time over again? There's a few questions in all that.
[00:31:15] Bianca Chatfield: Well, yes there is. And I think what's really important that the sporting bodies, whether they're Olympic sports, whether they're Commonwealth Games sports, doesn't matter what, I think the sporting bodies, it's their responsibility that if you have medical support team around athletes, that you also have to have a wellbeing support around athletes. I think it's getting to the stage, I know in my sport and a lot of other female sports, the welfare or wellbeing person has been, you know, part-time or a couple of hours a week and that's now becoming more of a full time option. And whether it's the players association or the sporting body that provide that, I think it's really important that there is someone there for the athletes.
[00:31:56] And probably the next layer to that, it's really important that that person is separate from the coaching staff and the people that are really directly involved in your performance. Because, you know, we had a wellbeing person with us, with the Australian netball team, and I didn't even feel confident enough to tell her that I was thinking of retiring. I bottled it all up and kept it a secret myself, because I didn't trust that she wouldn't tell the coach, and that then the coach wouldn't like look to the future because she knew I was going anyway. And even though that was my brain irrationally, probably, putting everything together, deciding what the outcome was going to be, I really just didn't feel comfortable. I didn't have that trust. And I think the wellbeing person that is around, and I'm great friends with her now, it was just the situation at the time, because it was a new thing for us to have them around us. And I think that's a really important part of it all now is that, yes, they're a part of the team, but they sit separate and there's a confidentiality like you can have with a doctor around what they're allowed to share and not. Cause I was very much like, if I had have been able to share that with someone and be able to talk through things, you know, potentially I could have handled it differently too. But I really think that's important for every athlete to have a wellbeing person that they can build a relationship over their career and have that real trust with them.
[00:33:13] And I know most sports have someone in place now, but I think it's important that they're always just as much as a priority as what a physio and what a doctor is, because we know athletes' mental health, we're seeing more of it now and more honesty and vulnerability from athletes, and I think that's just so important for our mental health is that we have that layer of support that's around us that's separate from your performance as an athlete.
[00:33:38] Sam Robertson: It's a nice recommendation to finish. And hopefully any sports that aren't doing that already can hear this and maybe take that on board. Bianca Chatfield, thanks so much for joining us. It's been a real pleasure.
[00:33:48] Bianca Chatfield: No worries at all. It's been a bit of fun reliving it all.
[00:33:52] Sam Robertson: Our next guest is Matti Clements. Matti is currently the Director of People Development and Wellbeing at the Australian Institute of Sport. This department supports Australia's high performance sporting industry across four key work functions - wellbeing and engagement, including mental health, professional development, and engagement; coach development; leadership and culture; and workforce development, to help enable optimal transitions in, through and out of elite sport. That's a big job!
Guest Two: Matti Clements
[00:34:23] Sam Robertson: Prior to her appointment to the AI S in 2018, Matti was the Director of Mental Edge Consulting. A qualified psychologist, she has worked at both the strategic and operational level at multiple Australian Football League clubs, Cricket Australia, Golf Australia, Netball Australia, Tennis Australia, and the Australian cricketers association. Matti, thanks for joining us on the show.
[00:34:44] Matti Clements: Thank you for having me.
[00:34:46] Sam Robertson: Now we've just heard a little about your background, but in kicking things off today, I'd like to start by focusing a little bit about what you're currently up to with the AIS. So, I'm conscious that things look a little different there these days, both in terms of structure and personnel. Can you talk a little bit about what your role as Director of People, Development and Wellbeing entails and how it fits in the overall AIS structure and operations?
[00:35:09] Matti Clements: Yeah, absolutely. So you're right, it is a little bit different to what some people may have thought the AIS was about. Many years ago it was quite a different setup. So my role is, I sit on the executive team, there's four of us on the executive team, and my area is people development and wellbeing. And what we do is we do the big system pieces of work for all the Olympic and Paralympic sports, so that they can have good services, programs, resources, etc, and they get dropped down through into those in the daily training environment.
[00:35:44] So no longer does the AIS have athletes, no longer does the AIS contract coaches. The sports have those. And my team's job is to create all those big picture things and big picture resources that all the sports need and aren't best placed to do individually. And then the sports tinker with them, or we support the sports to tinker with them, to get the right fit for them.
[00:36:08] Sam Robertson: So you've taken a little bit of, well, I guess I was going to say pride, pride probably is the right word, in the performance over the last couple of weeks, I take it?
[00:36:14] Matti Clements: Oh I reckon every, well I hope all of the Australian population has taken real pride in those performances. There's been some absolutely fantastic results there, but I also think what we're seeing is athletes talking post their races and being really relatable, humble, and I reckon it couldn't have come at a better time for the Australian population, to be honest.
[00:36:38] Sam Robertson: Yeah, and I won't talk about the contrasting examples of that, but there has been a real opportunity for athletes to show them, I guess, to be really open, transparent, show off their personality. And there's been a lot of different personalities at show, but I think that the humble nature of it has been definitely noted by myself, particularly in contrast to maybe some other athletes who we won't talking about, but no, that's a great story. And of course we've got in a couple of weeks time, we're going again, aren't we? With the Paralympics.
[00:37:04] Matti Clements: Paralympics, I can't wait. I cannot wait to see the Paralympic. And I think that Aussie performances will be once again, outstanding. Just jumping back to what you said there, I don't know if you noticed, Sam, but a lot of the athletes at the end of their interviews said things along the lines of, I hope I inspired the Australian population and I think that's really important to call out because, and I think they did do that, but they did that not always by, they didn't have to win a gold medal to inspire the nation, we saw that on so many examples where the individuals absolutely did an outstanding performance, but also they did it in the right way. They, you, we saw that in the decathlon, didn't we? That was just outstanding.
[00:37:48] We saw Jess Fox, and that has to be one of my favorite moments, where she actually wins the medal but then she actually in the interview with her dad says, I love you. And I thought that just touches the entire Australian population. So I couldn't be actually prouder of those performances, yeah.
[00:38:04] Sam Robertson: There's so many great memories there. And yeah, you mentioned the decathlon, I think that's my favorite sport. It's going through a resurgence, I think, at least in Australia, which so it should, it's one of the fantastic events.
[00:38:14] Matti Clements: Yeah! Amazing.
[00:38:15] Sam Robertson: Now we've just heard from Bianca Chatfield, and obviously here today we're really talking about part of the athlete journey, in particular that transition part of their journey into post-sport. But we might talk a bit about how that actually almost runs through the entirety of an athlete's career today, depending on your perspective on that.
[00:38:32] But yeah, Bianca was incredibly open and candid about her own experience in terms of what transitioning into retirement felt like for her. Now, I know you've worked with a lot of athletes across your career from a lot of different sports, so I'm interested in what are the predominant, I guess, emotions or feelings, or even events that all athletes experience, or maybe the majority of athletes tend to experience, irrespective of their sport, maybe before, during, and after they transition.
[00:38:59] Matti Clements: Couple of things about what you just said there, Sam. It is important to think about transition, not just out of athletic performance into next stage of life, I think there's multiple transition points in an athlete's career. And that actually the more we consider it from that viewpoint rather than the one viewpoint, when they're finishing up, the better placed they are for that next step out of athletic performance.
[00:39:23] But in terms of the emotions, ah, I've seen so many different emotions. I think a pretty common one is nervousness, uncertainty, worry, and stress. Because in many cases they've done something for such a long period of time and it's what they know, it's a routine for many of them, and then one day you don't have that routine there. And I think for anyone whether you're an athlete or not, for something to be changed that you've known and gives you a sense of confidence and certainty. For that to go, that makes people nervous and anxious. The level of that can obviously differs. But I think that's a pretty common, common sentiment.
[00:40:06] Sam Robertson: A couple of things there, that stress, and we talked to Bianca about this a little bit, that that stress in some ways can accelerate the end in a way, because it's actually detrimental to performance as well. So the stress of coming to the end and Bianca gave another example around by planning for after competition, you're also taking, well, it's probably not the right term, but you're taking your eye off the ball a little bit about maybe when you were 20 years old, you were 95% of your being or your existence is just to perform. Whereas now you're just taking little pieces of time away from that to think about what's coming next. Is that's something you notice as well?
[00:40:41] Matti Clements: Look, I think we still have individuals that think, if I start thinking about post-sport, I'm going to jinx myself. So it goes back to what I mentioned earlier - if we start thinking about there's so many different transition points across your career, and we start getting people to think about all those points, that helps with not jinxing yourself or taking your eye off the ball, because you can build into that, that very strong and true sentiment that having things away from the pitch absolutely can aid your on-field performance.
[00:41:20] Things aren't equal. So this concept of, I hate the word balance because it's not, I'm going to do five hours here, then I'm going to do five hours training. That's just not, that's not elite sport. So it's about, what's the right mix of all that for the individual and that right mix changes over the athlete's career journey. And I think when athletes transition more effectively or with less angst, they've been able to negotiate that mix of things throughout their career. And therefore that this is another period of time of re-assessing how I spend my time, rather than it's all one and then it's gone. Yeah so I think it's really, it's about building that mindset into the culture of the programs, into the culture of the conversation. So those people around the athlete as well, building those conversations, taking some role in those conversations.
[00:42:16] Sam Robertson: So it's very much, I mean, you said multiple transition points and I'm thinking of a continuum and that it's a journey. And I think that's even inherent in your title of the department, that it's not athlete development, it's people development. I assume that's really intentional.
[00:42:29] Matti Clements: Absolutely, because we focus a lot on athlete wellbeing. Yeah, that absolutely is important. But my view is the best practice is wellbeing within the HP programs, that includes coaches, high performance staff, all those, so actually having a culture where all people in there, are considering their wellbeing.
[00:42:50] Sam Robertson: Mmm, that is something I wanted to ask you about, about the responsibility of transition, the socio-cultural influences, which of course are the family, the friends and the sport, but I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But I wanted to talk more about, before we got to that, at least what the end goal of the transition process actually is. And you mentioned the importance of looking at the individual in your last response there. So I'm assuming in your response to that, you're not going to say that there's one goal for all athletes. But perhaps what does best practice transition look like then, for example, for you? One of the things, Sam, that I've been big on with my team, is regardless of whether it's an athlete or a coach or high performance director, we want these people leaving Australian elite sport saying they're better off for it. And that doesn't mean I've won a gold medal and I'm better off for that. It means I'm better off for the experience of being part of high-performance sport.
[00:43:48] Matti Clements: Now that might be utopia that we get everyone there or might be a little bit, you know, naive and rose-coloured glasses, but I think we can go a long way to achieving that. So I guess that's a long-winded way of answering your athlete transition question, because if athletes can leave, it would be normal to feel a bit lost, but if they can turn around in a year's time, maybe two years' time and say, I absolutely am better off as a person, I'm a better person being part of the high-performance system, I think we've done our job.
[00:44:21] Sam Robertson: That's really tricky because there's an inherent amount of, well, it's inherent in competitive sport and you kind of alluded to it before in terms of training time in your conversation about balance, but you've got to spend a lot of time thinking and worrying about yourself, don't you?
[00:44:35] Matti Clements: Yep. You absolutely do, you absolutely do. But what we want them to, individuals to, do is think about developing themselves and in actual fact, some of the stuff, if you think about what athletes do if they're part of a leadership team, for instance, that's skills that are really adaptable skills for other workplaces. So understanding that it's not just the time in the water, and then you go and do this other life. That actually there's all these other things that go with being part of a high-performance program that you can actually keep developing on-the-job tools and how they're useful in your next career choice.
[00:45:18] And I think that's that language of career choice. So I've had my career choice as an athlete and then my choice, and then what is my choice afterwards and my choice afterwards. And we know that individuals rarely stay in the one career choice for their entire life now, that those days are gone, people have multiple career changes, and we've sort of got to consider the athlete choice, because it is a choice, no one's forcing you to be an elite athlete, as part of that.
[00:45:45] Sam Robertson: Yeah and again, another example of sport reflecting society and vice versa, which happens all the time. Yeah. So I'm sure when we talk about the responsibilities in all of this, and it sounds from your responses already to what we've been talking about, that there is a level of responsibility from the sports, as well as the athlete. Where does it start and stop? Or does it not start and stop?
[00:46:07] I mentioned earlier, they've got these influencers of partners, friends, family, and the effect that full transition can have on them and vice versa as well. But obviously some of those influences, they're going to come and go, or they're going to be accentuated at different stages as well. I mean, many athletes may have a whole career without having a partner, or certainly at the start of their journey.
[00:46:27] Sam Robertson: It's obviously a joint responsibility, but maybe the best way to answer this is what are some good examples you've seen of this either through individuals, and I don't expect you to name names of course, or maybe some sporting governing bodies that are doing this really well?
[00:46:39] Matti Clements: I think it's a sport's responsibility to create, in a high-performance program, to create the culture for wellbeing to be part of the high performance program, but it is every individual's responsibility to own and drive their own wellbeing. I can, and I've said this so many times, my team can, for instance, create, we've got national mental health referral networks, national career practitioner referral networks, all these resources, we can create programs. We can create, provide, pay for them or whatever to the cows come home, but if the individuals don't decide to engage in them, I'm not going to mandate anything. I'm not going to mandate that you have to go and see the career practitioner, or have to engage in university. I'm not going to mandate any of that. Our job is to set up the systems, the resources, and the sport's responsibility is absolutely to create that space, that culture for it to be considered as HP, but it is everyone's individual responsibility to drive their own career path, their own professional development, just as you and I would do that as well.
[00:47:45] Sam Robertson: Sure, sure. Even though the athlete is spending so much time in that organisation or that network, they're still spending roughly half, or in some cases even more time outside that area, depending on the sport of course. And I think that's where we've had so many interesting conversations on this show about the between sport differences. There's so much that's the same about sport, but there's so much that's so different. You know, you look at the endurance sports and the time on task, working with a small number of coaches, versus a team sport, and even across teams sports it changes. And I think even the Olympic sports versus the professional sports, as in the franchise-based sports are so different as well. And I know you've, you've been through all of those, so.
[00:48:23] Matti Clements: You're right. I mean, every sport is different and you look at some of the sports we're currently now involved in, the amount of time, just because, you know look at triathlon, that's three different sports lumped in together. You know, we were talking before about decathlon. So there's just a huge volume of time that is required to actually train and then various sports have commitments around how they qualify for games, so therefore they need to be overseas, and then there's professional circuits that sit behind them. So each sport is very, very different.
[00:48:51] I don't think we can say there's one size fits all, but I think what we do know is that programs that retain people for multiple Olympic/Paralympic cycles, for your professional sports that multiple contracts, etc, are those programs that actually have wellbeing embedded into their high-performance culture and give it value. And the senior leaders role model it, the importance of it. People want to stay around, they feel like they're cared for, they feel like they're not just a commodity. All those things mean that people will stay around for more, and to be frank, probably give you more on the pitch I would have thought as well, because you actually feel like you're cared for, that's just a human trait, like we all want to feel like we're valued.
[00:49:36] Sam Robertson: Mm, well, the listeners can't see me nodding away here in the background, but yeah, it's something I completely concur with and there's plenty of good evidence in the research around that stability, provided of course that it's in the right environment is really beneficial on multiple levels.
[00:49:51] That's a nice segue into something I wanted to ask you around the relationship between professionalisation of sport or let's even call it that resourcing of the sport and actually poor transition. And it could work either way here. Where I'm going with that is, you know, if you've got more resources, you've got more stability, theoretically, it should make it easier to have better programs that you mentioned and make a better environment, and therefore also lead to better transition. But it also could work the other way in terms of, if you're semi-professional, you might be working a part-time job as well, along the side. And so you might be almost more in touch regularly with the, let's call it, real world, even though that's not the right term. What have you observed in terms of the level of professionalism of a sport and its relationship with transition?
[00:50:35] Matti Clements: Sam, I've seen both. I've seen both and I think absolutely have heard a lot of the sentiment around the professionalism of sports and how that stopped individuals, athletes, engaging or feeling motivated to do other things, but I've also seen the exact opposite as well.
[00:50:53] And I think it still comes back to what we spoke about at the start - individuals taking responsibility for the program, setting up the culture for the engagement, and I cannot move away from that. So I've seen it done really well with senior leadership driving it, and I've seen it done really appallingly where individuals go, well, I'm getting paid my contract, I don't need to worry about this other stuff because I'm set up, in theory, set up for life. But it's, we know that you can be paid money, but your wellbeing, developing yourself, is more than, for many of us, is more than just if I get paid or not. So all the other things that come with that and being able to understand and articulate that in terms of a high-performance culture and being a high performer as well. And I think those that grasp both, it doesn't matter whether you're professional or otherwise.
[00:51:46] Sam Robertson: It's almost like it's a something, because there's an economic reality here to some sports, let's face it, and that's not going to change. And it's almost an opportunity for those sports to work on those areas almost as a highlight of going into those sports, I think, and I'm sure that some of them do this already in terms of, we're realistic about where you're at and how much time you're gonna be able to spend on this, but we can offer you these other things that are gonna help you come out at the end of this as really well equipped for what's after sport for you, or at least competitive sport.
[00:52:13] Matti Clements: Yeah look I do think there's an opportunity for organisations and sports to use that to their competitive advantage, to say, you will be well-equipped for your next stage of life. And that's something we value. And that's something that we think is attractive to the marketplace. And particularly at the moment where in Australia, there's a lot of choice for athletes. Yeah. A lot of choice. So that should be part of your value proposition, I would think. Selfishly, I think that should be part of the value proposition, but I genuinely think it adds to the performance and the retention of really good people.
[00:52:47] Sam Robertson: Yeah, you've just got me thinking there slightly off topic, but I guess it's related in some way. I mean, just the attractiveness of sport as a career full stop. Athletes have always had relatively short careers, at least at the high level. In many sports, obviously athletes are just about finished by the time they're 30, they're not even halfway through their life. But you could argue, and I don't have any evidence to support this, but I think it's fairly self evident that athletes are under scrutiny that they've never been under before, whether it's media or social media, and even the way that we set up our anti-doping is the burden of proof is on the athlete rather than what we see in general society. It doesn't seem like it's affecting participation rates at the elite level in any way. You still think it's an attractive career for people?
[00:53:30] Matti Clements: Yeah I do. And may be it's the afterglow of the last two weeks. I do think it is an amazing, if you are physically and technically talented enough to be able to do that, I think it's really attractive. And I think we talked about it a bit earlier, that there are a whole heap of things you learn or experience and develop in a HP program as an Olympic/Paralympic athlete, at such a young age, that others don't. That is really, really attractive to other business places, other industries.
[00:54:09] To your point, they are young. Many of them are in leadership roles, extremely young. They're under so much public scrutiny. There's such a level of, how many of us go and perform in front of millions and millions of spectators and have to bounce back, to that level. Or have Joe Blow on the street who I've never met before, throwing me some advice about what I could have done better. So they do it at such a young age. I get that sounds negative, but also there's a way to flip that that's you're learning all this stuff, at such a young age, it well positions you for your next career choice.
[00:54:44] Sam Robertson: Yep, absolutely. You did a great job of tying that back into the topic at hand. I agree though, it should make them very hireable to a lot of different management roles. It's not just management, it's probably all sorts of roles that require resilience and things that, I know that's an overused term these days, but that's most jobs, isn't it? That they need those types of skillsets.
[00:55:03] Matti Clements: Yeah, those adaptable skills. And you think about what happened with the postponement of Tokyo, the Tokyo games. And when you see how our Aussie athletes have performed, there's something, like we said, hugely to be proud of, but there's something in that that surely other industries look at and go, wow, there were people retiring, going to retire, Sam, and then they're like, oh hang on, I'll keep going for another year.
[00:55:28] Sam Robertson: It's impressive, isn't it?
[00:55:29] Matti Clements: Oh, hugely impressive. But I do think other industries can look at that and go, what is it in there? And yes, there are types of people that I think are attracted to elite sport, and obviously you have to have the makeup to be able to physically deliver, so there's a whole heap of things that rule people out, but there's also, there's that mindset, that grit, that determination, and that is attractive. That is attractive for other industries.
[00:55:56] Sam Robertson: I agree. Now, the last thing, the last topic, I suppose, I wanted to cover with you before I let you go is just the future of this area. That tends to be where I normally finish our conversations on. So that might be, where improvements can be made either in the short or long-term, or what you'd like to see even in your own department, or you might even want to talk about what you're working on at the moment, or not. You might not want to give competitive advantage away. But where would you like and hope that this space moves in the next, I guess, couple of years?
[00:56:25] Matti Clements: I think more broadly, if we're narrowing on wellbeing, athlete wellbeing, people development is a real growth area. And I think is really, really getting the attention it needs, because we've all worked with head coaches that are technically and tactically fantastic, but they cannot manage people. And regardless of whether it's on a pitch, in the pool, or whatever, we're in the job of getting the best out of people. And those people just happen to be, in many cases, the best in the world, but it's still getting the best out of those people. And how do you motivate them? So it is about people,our business is about people.
[00:57:05] So my department's role is, I think we're in a really good almost with that moment in time where people have now understood that getting good people, so attracting, retaining and developing great people, great thinkers, but also good people managers for many of the roles, that is critical for the ongoing success of Australian sports.
[00:57:27] So I feel really lucky to be in the role we're in now. And I think we were talking about it a bit before we came online, the area of coach development. I thought it was lucky when I got the opportunity to set up the system for athlete wellbeing and engagement for the country, and I feel really fortunate about that, but I feel really fortunate I've got another opportunity with coach development, because something is special about coaches. And I worry that if we don't really pay attention to that and work on that and develop them and give them tools to succeed, we aren't going to be able to attract people into being coaches for the future. And we need coaches. There's no doubt about it. So that attraction and retention of world's best coaches is really important. And Australian-bred world's best coaches, that's really attractive, and females. We haven't done it well. I don't think any country has done it well. We should be doing it really well.
[00:58:19] So that's a bit of the future for that area, but in terms of wellbeing and engagement, I couldn't be prouder of what has been achieved in three years in this country from taking the system, taking a national approach, we have lots of other countries come and spend time with us, ask for resources, and I think that's a real testament to the team's hard work about setting it up. We haven't nailed it, there's no doubt about it, but we've come a long way in three years. We've got HP sport thinking wellbeing's front and centre. We've got AW&E managers, athlete wellbeing and engagement managers, embedded in high-performance programs. And they report into the High Performance Director or the CEO. They have a seat at the decision-making table, that three years ago, that was not the case.
[00:59:00] We invest really heavily in it. So we've done a lot of good things. The next bit I think is, as we talked about actually off air, that the real focus has been on the athlete wellbeing, best practice is the wellbeing of the HP program, the HP system, and that includes coaches and high performance directors, and HP staff. We've got a bit more work to do on that because, naturally, people always revert to athlete, athlete, athlete, at potentially at the cost of their own wellbeing. And we've got to start shifting that because we've got to have healthy people in the system, inclusive of athletes. So lots of work to be done, but I generally I'm really, I'm really proud of what the team has done.
[00:59:43] Sam Robertson: Yeah and I think the proof's been in the pudding over the last couple of years. I hear anecdotes and also we've seen some really great performances, but it also sounds like you've got a busy couple of years ahead. So I'll look forward to watching the journey.
[00:59:55] Matti Clements: Thanks for having me on the show.
[00:59:57] Sam Robertson: Thanks Matti.
Final Thoughts
[01:00:05] Sam Robertson: And now some final thoughts on today's question. It's clear that every athlete's journey, from beginning to retirement, is different. And despite the best possible planning, preparation and support, it's normal and perhaps unavoidable for every athlete to feel nervous, anxious, uncertain, and ultimately a sense of loss when their time in competitive sport comes to an end. This may be felt not just in the buzz that comes from training and competing, but also the time in the limelight, and connections with teammates.
[01:00:35] Fortunately, many organised sports now have structures in place to minimise the negative impacts that can occur during this time - from resentment, a loss of identity, and even long-term declined mental health. And when implemented well, these structures target preparing the athlete as a whole for post-competitive life - from the change in work hours, social interactions, and even eating habits.
[01:00:58] This should help to ensure that in retirement, the athlete doesn't just survive, but actually thrives, in whatever comes next. And the reality should be that whatever does come next for athletes has a good potential to be successful. By definition, elite athletes are exceptional - often not just in terms of athletic prowess, but also in skills that are directly transferable into whatever pursuit comes next. Resilience, dedication, and grit.
[01:01:25] I'm Sam Robertson, and this has been One Track Mind.
Outro
[01:01:29] Lara Chan-Baker: One Track Mind is brought to you by Track and Victoria University. Our host is professor Sam Robertson and our producer is Lara Chan-Baker - that's me!
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[01:02:10] Thank you so much for listening to One Track Mind, we will see you soon.
