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Chryssa Monteiro

Professor Gardiakos

ENC1102

07 April 2023

The Negative Outcomes that Result from External Pressures on Track and Field Athletes

Introduction

Track and field is a sport that has been around for decades. The very first Olympic games

were in 1896 in which track and field, which was then called athletics, was one of the few sports

that were included. It may be thought of as a well-known sport but it’s not as popular in the US

as many may think. When this sport is brought up, the first thing said is most likely ‘Olympics’.

Anyone rarely ever brings up the World Athletics Championships, USATF Indoor

Championships, USATF Outdoor Championships, USATF NAtional Junior Olympics, and the

list goes on. With that, not many even know that this sport isn’t just running, but it involves

jumping and throwing events, as well. This lack of recognition of the sport, as a whole, can mean

that most people do not know what goes on behind the scenes of track and field meets. The

world of track and field is far more complex than most sports. The pressure that is put on these

athletes is beyond anyone’s understanding.

For this paper, what I want to focus on is the track and field community, specifically

talking about athletes making irrational and impulsive decisions due to external pressures;

whether these decisions are made on or off the track. For my research I picked two

documentaries and a few interviews to observe for my research. All of them were chosen based
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on the information that is being provided within each one because not every documentary or

interview I watched talked about the topic of my paper. I wanted to use these sources to add on to

the conversation going on about external pressures on track and field athletes. Having been a

track athlete myself, I felt the need to dig deeper into this topic because it’s not something that is

talked about often when it’s quite important. No one likes to bring up the bad news, the

information that is so negative that the sun goes to hide behind the clouds and people go inside

their little bubble. But, this is something that needs to have more light and should be brought up,

because pressure is put on all humans, especially on athletes. It’s part of society and has always

been so there’s no point in just sweeping it under the rug and calling it a day.

Research Synthesis

It is widely known that track and field is a sport that requires both mental and physical

endurance. I’m not saying it’s just track, but in practically every other sport both of these

components are crucial. For some context to this topic, track and field has been around for

decades and yet two things, maybe the only topics that social media and the news talk about

when it comes to this sport, is simply races and wins. When this sport is even actually talked

about anywhere those two things are the only topics ever brought up. Occasionally, there will be

a discussion or news article talking about how a track athlete got injured, or something along

those lines. Yet, not many talk about the behind the scenes of what these athletes have to go

through in order to get to the major stadiums and compete. Since I am talking about the negative

outcomes from external pressures on track and field athletes, here are a few that are most
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common: use of PEDs, depression, anxiety, loss of motivation, contemplating suicide, and the

list goes on.

Something that every athlete strives for is perfection, and sometimes, certain pressures

put on an athlete can actually cause them to push far past their limits just to try and get a taste of

perfection. An article “The Perils of Perfectionism in Sports and Exercise” actually did a study

solely based on what negative outcomes arise from perfectionism. They describe how external

pressures put together with this concept of being perfect is actually considered “socially

prescribed perfectionism” (Flett and Hewitt section 1). These three simple words say quite a lot

on how those around an athlete can have such an effect on how they perform, how they view

themselves, and even how they feel about their sport. This idea of perfection plays along with

these pressures because by itself it is already a high expectation set on an athlete. Going along

with this, when an athlete senses that there is a standard that they must surpass, if they don’t

reach it and do even better they feel like they’ve failed those around them. Sometimes, this can

lead to overthinking their technique and their performance which then leads them to make certain

impulsive choices that, in the moment, may seem reasonable but in reality it’s far from that, it’s

irrational.

My research is to show how these choices are the result of these pressures. One of the

main outcomes that I will mention is actually very well-known in a variety of sports, and that is

the use of PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs). There is an article, “Performance-Enhancing

Drugs and the Olympics”, that does a study on how PEDs are being used in the Olympics. There

are various types of drugs that can be used for affecting different areas of the body. Within this

article, WADA (World Anti-Doping Code) is introduced to explain the rules set for the Olympic
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games in regards to drugs that can possibly be taken by an athlete. Reading through this article,

there is one main reason that is explained as to why athletes would even consider using PEDs in

the first place and that is to “gain a competitive edge” (Watson 1). Now logically speaking, the

only explanation for this would be that an athlete feels the need to do better than everyone else.

If one isn't fully confident in themselves, most likely due to the pressures around them making

them think they have to be even better than before, they may feel like they have to take that extra

step over the line to do better. They may want to do better to prove to those around them that

they are as good as the expectations set for them, or even better.

PEDs are just one of the negative outcomes of these external pressures and there will be

others discussed throughout this paper, but now one of the actual pressures put on athletes are

coming directly from their coaches There have been multiple studies done about how much

coaching strategies and motivational strategies can affect an athlete either positively or

negatively. Two articles I have found talk about both of these individually. The first article is

“Comparing the Effectiveness of Individual Coaching, Self-Coaching, and Group Training: How

Leadership Makes the Difference.”, written by Sabine Losch, and it goes in depth about the

different coaching methods that can be used. It isn’t directly related to track and field but it does

talk about how when athletes are treated a certain way by their coaches they may either feel

motivated to achieve greater things within their sports or they may feel ignored and belittled.

This also ties in to the other article “Academic Motivation, LearningStrategies, and Sports

Anxiety Of First-Year Student–Athletes.”, written by JoAnne Barbieri Bullard, which talks about

motivation strategies that athletes use in order to keep pushing forward, in a mentally and

physically healthy way. Athletes can find their own sources of motivation whether that be a
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person or a place, maybe even a memory from the past. Yet with all that being said, the coach is

always one main aspect that can add on to or take away from that motivation. The method that a

coach uses to teach their athletes can actually help motivate them even more or it could

completely push them down, which then leads to those negative outcomes. The pressure from the

coach regarding their coaching style can make or break an athlete.

Along with motivation from coaches, it is also important to take into consideration the

method of communication that is chosen by them, as well as anyone else directly involved with

the athlete. There is an article, “Communicative Challenges of Coaches in an Elite-Level Sports

System.”, that breaks down the steps of communication, specifically between a coach and

athlete. In this article, Carmen Borggrefe and Klaus Cachay talk about this specific topic as

being a three part process. First comes the selection of information, which essentially means

what exactly does the coach want to tell the athlete (Borggrefe and Cachay 6). The information

that a coach chooses to share with their athletes has to be thought out before actually being said.

Then comes the “utterance” (Borggrefe and Cachay 6) of this information, which is simply how

the coach is choosing to communicate with the athlete; this can be nonverbal, verbal, written, etc.

Different information can be shared in various ways because sometimes what may be better said

in person, face to face, may not be the best when said over a written message. The choice of how

the coach would like to share their information can have a great effect on how the athlete actually

understands it and what they even grasp from it. The final part is more so on the athletes side

because it is what they understand from what was said to them. Not everyone takes information

in the same way, so a coach could say the same thing to each athlete but they will individually

have their own thoughts of what they heard. If any of these three parts are messed up in any way
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or not clear enough, then there won’t be such a great outcome from that conversation. With this

being said, communication can lead to a feeling of stress and pressure on an athlete. Here is an

example, a coach may want to tell their athlete that they should work on their technique. The

coach goes to them and expresses this but does it in a way where the words chosen were

understood as destructive criticism. The athlete will feel like they have all this weight on them

now for various reasons. They may like they aren’t pushing themselves hard enough and so they

do, but they may start to go too far with their training because they have that idea of perfecting

their technique. This can eventually lead to them possibly getting injured or just overworking

their body and burning out.

Sometimes, when a coach brings up something that the athlete should work on, the

athlete may blame themselves for not being good enough. This can also lead to overworking

their body and there is an article written by three Swedish researchers, “The psychological factor

‘self-blame’ predicts overuse injury among top-level Swedish track and field athletes: a

12-month cohort study”, that explains this. Overuse injuries are more common than most people

think, and they almost always start with an athlete blaming themselves for not being good

enough. This study was done over the course of 12 months with Swedish track and field athletes.

It was found that, although they were able to find great coping mechanisms once they were

injured, most of them had blamed themselves for even getting injured in the first place. Tying

this into my research shows how these athletes start to have doubtful thoughts that it was all their

fault for getting hurt but the main cause of even developing these thoughts would be the high

expectations of the external pressures. Nobody can judge something about themselves unless

there is already a predetermined expectation set by the world around them. Doubts about oneself
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start with what they hear and see, because someone could see themselves confidently until they

are exposed to the outside world.

Although coaches can be a form of pressure on athletes, another group that could play

into this as well would be the parents. There was a study done with random groups to show how

much parents participation, communication, and motivation can affect an athlete, whether it

helps them to succeed or makes them feel as if they’re just in the shadows. The article “Effects of

the “MAMI Deporte®” Family Sports Program on Parents’ Motivation towards Sport

Participation: A Randomized Controlled Intervention.” explains that the two random groups

were one control, which solely just focused on the athletes, and one experimental, which focused

on getting parents more involved with their athletes' sport. It was found that those who

participated in the experimental group actually showed significant improvement in their

performance (Burgueño 8). These results contribute to my research because parents are

considered an external pressure, so this study shows how much weight they actually have on

athletes. Along with coaches, they can make or break an athlete's career.

Methods

For my primary research, I have observed documentaries and interviews done with track

athletes, as well as conducted my own interviews. The documentaries I have chosen for my

research consist of two short films and they are about the athletes Raven Sauders, An Olympian

Takes On Depression - PBS Short Docs, and Amelia Boone, 15 Hours With Amelia Boone. The

interviews I have chosen to observe and study were done with the following track and field

athletes: Sha’Carri Richardson, Zane Robertson, Neeraj Chopra, Valerie Contien, Femita
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Ayanbeku, Anna Cockrell, Mary Cain, and Athing Mu. All of these interviews were either taken

from transcripts or by watching the physical videos. I have also taken an interview that consists

of a variety of Olympic athletes in general, not just from the sport of track and field, which will

contribute to my main claim about the external pressures.

The observations of the documentaries will be dissected into different categories. After

watching each one, I will first see the main topics that are talked about in each one individually.

Once they are broadly categorized, I will start to see what they have in common and what

differences they show from one another. By comparing and contrasting them, I can draw linked

observations explaining the common effect of external pressures on these track and field athletes.

These may then be concluded into very specific categories to help support my overall claim of

these pressures and how they may lead to negative outcomes. From the previously recorded

interviews, I will watch each one, just as I did with the documentaries, and see what major, broad

categories they fall into. My method for observing these interviews will be quite similar to that

of the documentaries, the only difference being that there are more interviews, thus leading to

more information provided in the results from them. The one singular interview that is a bit

different from the others, in terms of the sports mentioned, will be observed solely to gather short

information such as quotes from individual athletes. The purpose of this is to add on to the idea

of external pressures as a whole, meaning it affects every athlete. So, even though my focus is on

the track and field community specifically, I would like to add in some of this information to

give my findings even more depth. I believe this will strengthen my argument by adding on to

the effects of these external pressures in all sports.

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The interviews that I have done myself, involve track athletes who I personally know.

They are all between the ages of 17-20 and are either currently in high school or have already

graduated. I will be keeping their information anonymous and solely presenting their responses

with no specific names of people or places. I have asked them a variety of questions that range

from open-ended to closed-ended. For the most part, I asked open-ended questions because I

don’t just want superficial feelings and thoughts, I want to get down to the bottom of this topic. I

want to know the true feelings of these athletes when it comes to their sport, their coaches, their

experience, everything. I asked quite a few but I decided to only use certain ones for this paper

because some of the answers didn’t have much to do with the topic in which I am talking about.

The first question I asked is quite simple, “How would you describe your track experience?”.

The purpose of this question is to just get a feel of how the athlete felt within their sport. I then

followed this with two questions that go together along the same lines, “What impacts did/do

your coaches have on you?” and “Do certain people change the way you feel about your

performance in your sport? Why or why not?”. I believe these questions are one of the essential

ones, because coaches are one of the people in an athlete's life who can make or break their

athletic career/performance. They are one of the people with the biggest impacts on an athlete.

The next question was, “Do you strive for perfection? Why or why not?”. Now, this question

may seem a bit odd to ask simply because one may think ‘who wouldn’t want perfection?’ but I

have a good reason for this one. Sometimes, an athlete may not strive for perfection but they may

have that subconscious thought that perfection is the goal. You may not outright say you want to

have a perfect stride or a perfect throw, and you may say that no one is perfect and perfection is

unattainable, which is quite obvious. But, although an athlete may not think they want to be
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perfect, they just want to be the best they can, deep down perfection is the goal, and the answers

to this question will further support my reasoning to ask it. Then the last final questions I asked

were, “Why do you think pro track athletes use PEDs? Would you be able to justify the use of

any drug within this sport?”. These two questions have to do with one of the outcomes of

external pressures. I asked these because it’ll give me an idea of how these younger track athletes

may feel in regards to PEDs. I’d like to know what they think about it because people think

differently from one another. From these interviews that I will do, I believe that I’ll be able to

connect them to the interviews that were already done with the pro track and field athletes.

Results

First and foremost, I’d like to say that I really enjoyed watching, reading, and collecting

all the data from the documentaries and the interviews. My research for this project was quite

interesting. I heard and saw things that I didn’t really think about so much prior to this research

paper. The first set of data is from the short documentaries An Olympian Takes On Depression -

PBS Short Docs and 15 Hours with Amelia Boone. After watching these two, I was able to find

various different things that I believe will have a great contribution to my research.

First, I wanted to organize some of the information found in each one into categories.

Raven Saunders and Amelia Boone are two track and field athletes who have gone through a

rough road throughout their lives. Raven Saunders at such a young age had witnessed domestic

abuse towards her mothers. As she grew up, she started doing weightlifting at her school and

soon joined the highschool track team. She was given the nickname “The Hulk” because she was

practically stronger than any other person in her school. Saunders went on to win the state
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championship in highschool which then led her to soon go to the Olympics. After competing in

the Rio Olympics of 2016 and finishing in 5th place, Raven Saunders went home where they had

a parade to celebrate her. After this celebration was over, Saunders explains that it felt like there

was this weight on her and she just couldn’t talk about it with anyone (Saunders 4:51). All of the

pressure of everyone around her expecting her to always be good, along with her childhood

experiences, pushed her into this dark place; she was diagnosed with depression. She got so deep

into this state of mind that she contemplated driving her car off of a cliff. She was so close to

doing so until she talked to her therapist who eventually helped her to clear her mind. From

Raven Saunders' story, I was able to find a few key words to generally categorize it, such as

depression, anxiety, stress, mentally challenging, pressure, and childhood trauma.

Amelia Boone, is another track athlete who has an incredible story. This short

documentary about Boone has more to do with how her mentality towards running has changed

over the years. She has ran for most of her life and when she was younger she explained that she

only really raced to impress others. Boone believed that she had something to prove to those

around her because she felt this pressure set on her to reach a certain expectation (Boone 4:32).

Her story goes along with the topic that was mentioned in this paper before about perfection.

Boone explains how she “was driven by that achievement of perfection and by conquering that

next goal and frankly that can actually be kind of unhealthy” (Boone 6:08). External pressures

can lead an athlete to thinking that they have to reach the expectation of being perfect which can

lead to negative outcomes, such as how Boone explained that it’s unhealthy. In her short

documentary explaining the mental side of running, I was able to find key terms to categorize it
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overall, such as unhealthy habits, need for perfection, negative thoughts, mental block,

frustration.

After generally categorizing all of this information from both short films, I was able to

connect the two. As athletes, there are many things that go on mentally and most of the thoughts

are influenced from outside sources, whether that's a coach, a parent, or a friend. Both of these

track athletes explained what goes on in their mind and how it has changed and affected them

over the years. These two films were shared with the world to help inform other athletes that

everyone gets beat down by the pressure at some point and to add on to this, my research shows

that many track athletes have more in common than they think they do. The similarities found in

both of these films are that both of them went through a mental battle and found ways to surpass

it and go up from there. But, both broke down under all that pressure explaining that the world

around them had put so much weight on their shoulders.

The second set of data is from the previously done interviews. There are two that are

directly from youtube which talk about the athletes Sha’Carri Richardson, Femita Ayanbeku,

Anna Cockrell, Mary Cain, and Athing Mu. Then the written interviews talk about Zane

Robertson, Neeraj Chopra, and Valerie Constein. All of these are athletes who participated in the

Olympics at least once in their lives.

From the one interview done with Femita Ayanbeku, Anna Cockrell, Mary Cain, and

Athing Mu, they all mentioned things that have to do with insecurity, physical expectation, and

unhealthy norms. Although my main topic has to do with pressure on athletes' performance, I did

notice that there are also pressures on their physical appearance, which in turn can have an effect

on their performance. Since they are all females, this is where I first noticed how they all brought
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up the idea of mental health in regards to their physical appearance in this sport. Femita

Ayenbeku said that people are “...saying these things to [her] and they’re not knowing [she’s]

going back to [her] room looking in the mirror.” (Togethxr 10:08). She would continuously be

told that she had to meet those expectations or she wasn’t enough. They had multiple

expectations that made them feel pressured to look a certain way. These pressures led one of

them, Anna Cockrell, to even change her eating habits to ways that were quite unhealthy. She

overmanaged what she ate and started to feel tired and unsatisfied with the life she was living.

She felt controlled by the public pressure to eat and look a certain way or else she was unfit for

her sport and she felt as if these were “... very unhealthy norms that exist in [this] sport”

(Togethxr 10:48). This inevitably affected her performance, it became hard for her to focus on

how well she was running while she put too much attention on pleasing the audience by her

physical appearance. For Mary Cain, she mentioned she was a swimmer before she became a

track and field athlete. In swimming, it didn’t necessarily matter what they looked like because

everyone wore the same suits and looked the same regardless of gender. Once she transitioned to

track, right around the age of 13-14 years old she was already given the shorts that female

athletes run in, they’re called buns. She said she felt like she had “... to fit into a tiny bikini to be

valued…” (Togethxr 4:47) and the buns are essentially like bikini bottoms which is why she felt

such discomfort while simply doing her part within the sport. Of all these four athletes that were

interviewed in this video, they had a general theme of expectations on how to act in society, how

to be in the athletic world, and even how they should look within their sport. All of these things

affected them mentally which then took a toll on their performance and some of them even made

decisions that hurt them even more.

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The next interview is with Sha’Carri Richarson and many may know her from the

Olympic trials last year. She is one of the fastest female runners in America, as of right now. One

of the main stories you may have heard her name in would be her disqualification from the

Olympics after she failed a drug test once the trials were over. She tested positive for a chemical

that is commonly found in marijuana which in the rule books can be considered a PED. She did

various interviews but the one that I am using today is from the one that was done with the

TODAY show. She was asked multiple questions about how the Olympics trials went and about

how she dealt with the news after being disqualified, but the main one from this interview was

when she was asked about why she did it, what was her reasoning behind using this drug?

Richardson was very open about it in every single interview she did and her main reason for

using marijuana was because her biological mother passed away right before her race. She

discussed the amount of pressure she felt in regards to her athletic performance and how the

death of her mother added on to that pressure. She felt the need to always have to run fast and get

a record-breaking time when she stepped on the track (TODAY 4:36). She mentioned how the

pressure of having to do good, having to look okay, and also her mother is what led to her

deciding to take that drug. One of the main quotes that stuck with me from this interview was

when she said “I know what I did, I know what I’m allowed to do … and I still made that

decision.”. I wanted to include this phrase because this is one of the few times where an athlete

speaks with such raw thoughts and emotions. She knew what was right and what was wrong, but

because of everything that was put on her shoulders in such a short period of time near her race,

she made the wrong choice. This decision led to others around her being pleased, not knowing

what was truly going on behind closed doors.

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The written interviews were done with Zane Robertson, Neeraj Chopra, and Valerie

Constein and all of them did in fact have quite a few things in common when talking about

pressure. Zane Robertson is an Olympic long-distance runner from New Zealand, Neeraj Chopra

is a Javelin Olympic thrower, and Valerie Constien is an Olympic long-distance runner.

Robertson was banned from the Olympics for about eight years because he tested positive

for erythropoietin, which is commonly known as EPO. He expressed that he felt this

“...frustration and anger at the sport itself.” (CNN). He felt pressure from his management team,

from his supporters, and even from his family. Zane Robertson felt so much weight put on him

that he even began to have suicidal thoughts at one point. Nothing seemed to go his way because

everything he did wasn’t enough for those around him. He wasn’t running fast enough or he just

wasn't performing as well as they all expected him to, which led him to take EPO which helped

to improve his recovery and his endurance.

Neeraj Chopra spoke to The Times of India about how pressure affected him and how it

can take a toll on all athletes. He mentions how “...the pressure could lead to a situation where

you lose your control over your technique and start committing mistakes by just using the force

in your throws.” (Chopra - The Times of India). As a javelin thrower myself, I learned the hard

way that it is all about technique. You can be the strongest athlete on your team, but if your

technique is the worst of them all, then your strength can only get you so far. In this case,

pressure can affect an athletes performance by affecting their thoughts and making them perform

without proper technique. This is a subconscious decision that many athletes make because they

want to be good and they want to impress but sometimes they can’t think straight and they start

to push themselves in the wrong direction.

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Valerie Constien is a long-distance runner just like Zane Robertson. She did an interview

with Runner’s World and one of the main quotes that stuck was when she said that “Athletes put

a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform well, and a part of that is perfection,”. This ties into the

idea of perfection being harmful to athletes. External pressures change the way an athlete thinks

and the more they feel they have to be perfect, the more they can hurt themselves. She follows

this by explaining that she thinks “...the pursuit of perfection can be very damaging, especially if

you don’t have the resources to deal with failures and injuries.” (Val Constien - Runner’s World).

The need for perfection is an outcome of pressure that is part of the mental aspect in an athlete’s

career. Valerie Constien continues to talk about this topic and even explains how this is

something that every athlete goes through at some point.

All three of these athletes felt a different part of pressure, their performance was affected

and their decision making, meaning that the weight took a toll on them both mentally and

physically. These stories contribute to the overall conversation about external pressures on track

and field athletes. Although their stories were told individually, when put together they seem to

have a stronger punch explaining what really goes on behind closed doors.

Now finally, the interviews that I did myself were mixed half and half with positive and

negative results. I interviewed a total of four track and field athletes, and I asked them all the

exact same questions. Two of them had answers with more positive words and phrases such as

the following: “My track experience was an outlet for me…”; “My coaches…became like

another set of parents…”; “...my coaches on the sideline yelling my name and telling me to push

was great motivation…”; “...my coaches say all the right words in almost every situation…”.

From these responses, all I could think of was how much these two enjoyed their sport and how
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they were able to succeed in it. They didn’t have coaches who put too much pressure on them to

where they felt like they weren’t good enough to meet those expectations. They most certainly

didn’t have any coach that belittled them or just anyone in their lives in general who did this.

They had quite supporting people around them who didn’t make them feel like they had to reach

such high expectations because they were already doing their best.

On the other hand, the other two athletes had completely opposite responses from the

previous ones. From this set of answers I was able to determine and conclude that every athlete

does have a completely different experience when it comes to their sport because of who and

what they are surrounded by. For these two athletes their responses were quite negative such as

the following: “...sometimes certain situations with coaches and teammates would make me feel

this hate towards track.”; “...these instances were very brutal for me…”; “My coaches in middle

school were amazing… but my high school coaches were a completely different story.”; “...my

reasoning for striving for perfection has changed drastically over the years, and not for good

reasons…”; …some people made me feel as though i’ll never be enough.”; one of their coaches

said these words to them, “What a shame, such a talented athlete to waste because of a silly

injury.”. There are so many more quotes that I’d like to use in this paper but the list would never

end if I did include them all. While I interviewed these two athletes I actually felt hurt for them. I

could feel so much emotion in their words and it was mostly pain. I think that from these

responses it’s easily concluded that pressure from coaches, whether it’s their actions or their

words, can really affect an athlete to the point where they don’t even want to be a part of that

sport. One of the athletes who mentioned the quote from their coach actually talked about how

when they were once injured, a rotator cuff injury, they felt the need to hide it at first. This goes
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along with one of the sources mentioned earlier about self-blame injuries. This athlete blamed

themself for getting hurt but they knew deep down that they were simply just pushing themself

too hard to reach their coaches expectation.

All of these interviews really opened my eyes about how two athletes can have

completely different experiences regardless of being on the same team or in the same sport. I

already had an idea of this because I was also a track and field athlete, but hearing their stories

really made me think about all athletes together.

Discussion/Implications

The track and field community has slowly over the years talked about how pressure can

change people. High expectations can hurt athletes more than actually try to help them improve.

After doing my research on the topic of external pressures on track athletes, I can finally say that

not every athlete can be hurt from these pressures, but there are most certainly more than a

handful who have been hurt mentally and physically. Watching the documentaries and interviews

made me think more and connect the dots on how much weight track athletes really have to

carry. Once I did my own interviews I was beyond shocked as to how different each athlete

really is. Like I said before, some had the time of their lives while participating in this sport but

others really didn’t have that same experience. The variety of outcomes are practically endless

when it comes to this sport because there are so many things that go through an athlete's mind

that they could choose to do anything imaginable. From what was discussed in this paper,

athletes were on the verge of committing suicide, they used performance-enhacning drugs, they

changed their eating habits, they pushed themselves so far that they got injured, and the list goes
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on. Yes, there are positive outcomes as well where the athletes overcame many situations where

they felt like pressure had the upper hand, so I won’t completely rule that out because there is a

positive and negative side to everything. But, my purpose for this research was to shed light on

the negative side because that is a topic that many refuse to speak about due to its dark nature.

There were quite a few implications with my research and I think that if I were to do this

again I would change up a few things. One of the main restrictions for me was the age group, the

area/location, and also information. For the interviews that I conducted, I had asked people who

are roughly around 17-20 years old, so this means that I am not accounting for any other athletes

outside of this age range. Also, these athletes are all from roughly the same area and mostly all

went to the same schools together, so I cannot also account for athletes in other schools or other

areas. Now, the interviews that I watched and read from well-known pro athletes weren’t within

the same age group as my interviews so that has a little bit more diversity in it. Then again, I

only picked a select few, meaning my research cannot speak on behalf of all other track and field

athletes. With the information restriction, there is only so much that I can gather from watching a

documentary or reading an interview. With sources like these, there isn’t just one thing that is

talked about throughout the entire film or interview. There are various questions asked in the

interviews that range from my exact topic to something completely different. There is also a

multitude of information provided from the documentaries because it’s made to spread awareness

about that certain topic, thus I could only get so much from them because I only took what was

actually relevant to my research.

 Monteiro 20

Overall, this research has definitely opened eyes and shed light on a topic that I believe

was never seen as a big deal. Track and field itself already isn’t such a big sport, unless it’s time

for the Olympics. People don’t sit and watch a track meet on television like they do with football

or soccer. Most people couldn’t say the first rule about track and field yet they could call out

such a minuscule mistake during a football game that even the referees barely caught. Because of

this lack of popularity, what goes on behind the closed doors of track and field athlete’s careers is

practically unknown to the public, but my research helps contribute to this with valuable

information that gives a glimpse of that world.

 Monteiro 21

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