Alexi Pappas: I Made It to the Olympics. I Wasn't Ready for What Happened Next. | NYT Opinion

What if athletes and coaches were trained to look for depression just as vigilantly as they’d be watching for a hamstring pull? In the Op-Ed video above, Alexi Pappas, who lives in Los Angeles, argues that we should view mental health and physical health as equally important and as treatable as a torn ACL. She would know. She’s a record-setting runner who raced at the 2016 Olympics in Rio but came crashing down after she experienced clinical depression soon after.

While she had been trained to pay close attention to her body, she was ill equipped when it came to handling psychological wounds. Imagine if sports — and society — designated the same amount of resources toward mental health screening and treatment as they do to physical well being and viewed a healthy body and mind as equally important to success?