Updated August 12, 2024 at 06:15 AM ET
PARIS — When you think about athletes talking about their sport in the locker room, what comes to mind is that classic scene from the baseball movie Bull Durham.
"You're going to have to learn your clichés," the older ballplayer says, as he teaches the younger athlete to speak without saying anything. Then he offers up that old meaningless gem: "We got to play them one day at a time."
And sometimes talking to Olympians here in Paris, you hear that kind of stuff. But spending time with these athletes coming off the track or out of the pool, I slowly realized a lot of these remarkable people were speaking truths that felt powerful.
The moment that flipped a switch for me, and got me paying attention, was when swimmer Nic Fink talked about getting older and becoming a father.
"The changes, I’ve been embracing them along the way," he said. "I told myself swimming wasn’t going to get in the way of life anymore. I wanted to find a better balance."
Find a better balance
It struck me I was hearing about life balance a lot from these athletes. They didn't actually talk very much about winning or medals. Instead they talked about their process, about improving themselves steadily, often in tiny ways.
"Every day I can wake up and try and do something a little bit better," said Michelle Sechser an Olympic rower. "There are so many pieces to the puzzle. Being a little bit better can be a bio-mechanical improvement or a technique improvement or being a better teammate. I love how that feels to see myself and feel myself improving."
Olympic athletes dropping big performances and pearls of wisdom
I started keeping track of other big ideas athletes were dropping. About the tension between ambition and contentment. About the way patience and thought can shape the most explosive sports. A lot of Olympians believe their sport can send important messages about our bodies and our identities.
"As women, a lot of times our body has been this object to be looked at, something to be objectified," said rugby player Ilona Maher. "To get into a sport like rugby it gives your body a purpose, shows what it’s capable of, it’s not just something for others to judge."
A big thing athletes are talking about more openly, with humor but also often with rawness and vulnerability is their mental health. Asked if she had any advice she would offer a younger version of herself, hurdler Anna Cockrell laughed.
"What would I tell myself? Girl get in that therapist’s office immediately," she said. Cockrell has spoken openly about training and competing while experiencing depression.
"I think I was a person who was kind of inconsistent. I would go to therapy for a second and be like, I’m cured! That’s not how it works. The progress, in my opinion, comes from continuing when you’re not in crisis."
I'll mention two more big ideas I heard from Olympians. One is gratitude. Competitors talk a lot about how grateful they are — for their support networks, their teammates and their communities — but also for their opponents, the people who sometimes beat them.
Swimmer Katie Ledecky spoke about this during a press conference sitting next to one of her chief competitors, Australian Ariarne Titmus. "After the race, I just told Ariarne, thank you for making me better. I think we bring the best out of each other. Thank you."
A last thing that is really important here is how often Olympians say they build their performances on faith, spirituality, sometimes a belief in God. During her competition on Friday, German shot putter Yemisi Ogunleye described slipping during a throw.
"After falling, I went back to my seat and sang a song," Ogunleye said. It was one of the hymns she sings in her gospel choir. Then she got up and went out and won a gold medal.
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