He Summer Games 2020 in Tokyo helped change the conversation about mental health.
Four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles He led the charge by speaking publicly about the challenges athletes face and the difficulty of overcoming those moments on the world's biggest stage.
American Simone Biles prepares to compete on the beam during the women's qualifications at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Speaking to Fox News Digital, American fencer Elizabeth Tartakovsky, who will represent Team USA for the first time in Paris this summer, spoke about her own journey to mental health and how important it is that the topic now has visibility .
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“I think it's really fantastic that we're talking so openly about mental health now.”
“I achieved success at a young age,” the 23-year-old New Jersey native recalled. “And then once I started to mature a little more, the field started to get more competitive, I realized it's a grind.”
“You have to lose more than you gain to learn and you have to learn to be resilient.”
Elizabeth Tartakovsky of Team USA prepares to fight Team Poland during the junior team women's saber event at the World Junior and Cadet Fencing Championships on April 9, 2017 at the Plovdiv International Fair in Plovdiv , Bulgaria. (Devin Manky/Getty Images)
Tartakovsky comes from fencing royalty. His great-uncle, famed Olympic fencing coach and U.S. Hall of Famer Yury Gelman, was his introduction to the sport. She watched from home as he coached the men's saber team to the silver medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Tartakovsky said she was “captivated” by the sport.
“I had never seen anything like it”.
SIMONE BILES REMEMBER FEARING THE WORST AFTER SUFFERING 'TWISTIES' AT 2020 OLYMPICS: 'USA HATES ME'
In a sport where mental focus and quick thinking are everything, seeing success from such a young age added another layer of difficulty.
“I started working with a sports psychologist, maybe in high school, just to learn how to deal with all these different emotions, the pressure, the expectations and also learn how to perform well under stress,” Tartakovsky said.
“If you watch a fencing match, each point happens in two seconds. So I had to learn how to prepare emotionally and mentally, how to recover between losses and during difficult moments in my fencing.”
Elizabeth Tartakovsky of Harvard fences against Maia Chamberlain of Princeton during the first Saber semifinal during the Division I Women's Fencing Championships held at the Castellan Family Fencing Center on March 25, 2022 in Notre Dame, Indiana. (Marc Lebryk/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
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Tartakovsky, 2022 NCAA Women's Saber National ChampionHe will be 24 years old when he arrives in Paris for the 2024 Summer Games in what will be his Olympic debut. The goal is always gold, but Tartakovsky says he doesn't want his experience to be “defined by the outcome.” He also recognizes that it's anyone's game.
“If it was just about who trains the hardest and who is the most athletic, then we would always see the same person win, but that's not the case. It's really about who can show up that day and be the best, mentally.” . dominant too.”
She continued: “I think it's great that there's been a lot of visibility in that aspect of sports. And it's something that I had to learn to deal with and went on my own journey to learn about myself.”
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