In India, conversations on athlete welfare have historically centred on infrastructure, nutrition, coaching quality, and exposure. While these are indispensable components of sporting success, one critical determinant continues to receive insufficient attention: mental health. For women in sport, the gap is even more pronounced, shaped by unique physiological demands, social pressures, and systemic constraints that remain inadequately addressed.
As both a former athlete and a coach, I have observed how mental health challenges silently shape performance trajectories, sometimes more powerfully than any physical obstacle. The assumption that elite athletes are inherently resilient has long overshadowed the reality that they are equally vulnerable to stress, anxiety, burnout, and emotional dysregulation. These vulnerabilities are neither rare nor anecdotal—they are present across levels of sport and demand structured recognition.
The hidden burden on women athletes
Female athletes face a distinctive set of pressures. In addition to the demands of training and competition, many navigate expectations related to appearance, gender roles, family responsibilities, and career–life balance. These cumulative pressures are intensified by environments where emotional distress is often dismissed as a lack of discipline rather than acknowledged as a legitimate health concern.
For athletes who become mothers, the challenges are magnified. The transition into motherhood involves profound physiological changes—hormonal fluctuation, disrupted sleep, and physical recovery—all of which can significantly affect mental well-being. Yet for many, these realities remain unspoken. The “do-it-all” expectation placed on women often prevents them from seeking support, and the absence of institutional frameworks for postpartum or maternal mental health creates a predictable risk of burnout.
Culture of silence and its consequences
Despite progress, a culture of silence persists in Indian sport. Athletes often internalise the belief that acknowledging mental strain will jeopardise selection, sponsorship, or public perception. This silence delays help-seeking, exacerbates distress, and, in some cases, derails careers that could have thrived with timely intervention.
The issue is not individual hesitation alone—it is structural. Most training systems still lack embedded mental health professionals. Coaches, physiotherapists, and administrators rarely receive training to identify early psychological warning signs. Screening for mental well-being is not institutionalised. As a result, the responsibility for navigating emotional challenges falls disproportionately on the athlete, unsupported and often misunderstood.
Integrating mental health into athlete development
A modern sports ecosystem cannot treat mental health as supplementary. It must be integrated into athlete development with the same rigour as physical conditioning. This requires:
1. Mandatory mental health infrastructure
Every national and state-level training centre should have qualified sports psychologists and counsellors as part of the core support staff. Mental health services must be accessible, confidential, and embedded, not reactive or optional.
2. Coach and staff sensitisation
Technical excellence must be accompanied by emotional literacy. Training programmes for coaches and support personnel should include modules on stress indicators, communication strategies, and referral pathways.
3. Tailored support for women athletes
Policies must recognise the specific needs of women, including maternal mental health, postpartum support, flexible training models, and access to childcare for athlete mothers.
4. Normalising help-seeking
Institutional messaging should emphasise that psychological support is an element of high-performance preparation, not a response to a crisis. This repositioning is essential to dismantle stigma.
5. Research and data-driven policy
Indian sport requires context-specific research on the mental health challenges of athletes—including gendered patterns, cultural pressures, and the impact of early-career stress—to inform evidence-based interventions.
A changing landscape — But progress must accelerate
The emergence of platforms that centre mental health is a positive shift. Forums such as the Mpowering Minds Women’s Mental Health Summit are enabling a more grounded, multidisciplinary conversation on the systemic reforms needed—bringing clinicians, policymakers, and sports leaders together to examine not just individual cases but structural gaps. Such spaces are essential for creating a unified national narrative that recognises mental health as central to athlete welfare, especially for women.
However, conversation must now translate into policy. India’s growing sporting ambition cannot be realised unless mental health is treated as a core pillar of performance. The objective is not merely to prevent crises but to build resilient, supported athletes capable of sustaining long, healthy sporting careers.
The unseen hurdles athletes face are often the ones that define their journeys. For too long, mental health has remained one such hurdle—unacknowledged, under-resourced, and misunderstood. Addressing it requires structural commitment, cultural change, and gender-sensitive interventions.
Indian sport stands at a moment of transformation. To strengthen the next generation of athletes, especially women, we must ensure that mental health is not handled informally or reactively but treated as a fundamental component of excellence.
Only then will our athletes be able to compete not just with strength and speed, but with the psychological well-being required to sustain success at the highest level.
These systemic gaps in sport mirror challenges faced by women across leadership spaces more broadly. Whether in sport, administration, corporate sectors, or public life, women often shoulder dual expectations—high performance on one hand and uncompromising caregiving, relational, and societal responsibilities on the other. This constant negotiation of ambition and obligation creates a mental load that is both invisible and chronic. For women leaders, including athletes who transition into roles of mentorship, governance, or advocacy, the psychological strain can be compounded by bias, scrutiny, and the pressure to model resilience. Understanding these intersections is essential because the well-being of women in leadership is not merely a personal concern; it directly shapes organisational culture, talent pipelines, and the ecosystem of support available to future generations.
The author is an Olympian and India's first athletics world championship medal winner. She is currently the Senior Vice President of the Athletics Federation of India.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
