Team USA’s biggest stars have suffered a nightmare Winter Olympics, and a sports psychologist believes a silent epidemic is causing them to fail.
Americans have watched some of the nation’s top Olympians, including skiing legend Mikaela Shiffrin and figure skating world champion Ilia Malinin, crumble in Italy.
Dr Tom Ferraro, who has worked with professional athletes and Olympians for three decades, told the Daily Mail that ‘choking’ is a real phenomenon brought on by internal conflicts, guilt or anxiety that causes stars to sabotage their own success.
Despite years of practice and thousands of repetitions to build muscle memory, Ferraro said it can all be undone when external pressures, such as media attention and money, build up in the body and brain in the form of crippling tension.
‘If there’s a mistake that occurs during whatever the performance is, then that increases pressure, increases tension, which facilitates another mistake,’ Ferraro explained. ‘That facilitates more self-doubt, that facilitates more tension – and so it’s a cycle that goes on and on and on.’
Ferraro suggested that American athletes have become more prone to mental illness than competitors from other countries and offered a provocative theory about why.
US figure skater Ilia Malinin was distraught after losing in the men’s free skate at the 2026 Winter Olympics
US skier Mikaela Shiffrin lost eight straight Olympic events dating back to the 2022 winter games before capturing gold for the first time in eight years on Wednesday
Compared to the rest of the world, the New York-based sports psychologist and psychoanalyst diagnosed American athletes as being more aggressive, grandiose and narcissistic.
While this can give them power and the confidence to be a winning athlete, he said it is also leaving many competitors internally ’empty’ and vulnerable to breakdowns.
‘They all tend to have – especially if they are famous when they’re young – their soul is stolen from them,’ Ferraro said. ‘The true self is stolen from them.’
This was the first Winter Olympics for Malinin, 21. But he was already a two-time world champion in men’s figure skating before taking the ice in Milan.
He entered the four-and-a-half-minute free skate Friday with a five-point lead, but ended up aborting several jumps in mid-air and falling multiple times, ending up in eighth place in one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history.
Shiffrin, an Olympic champion in both 2014 and 2018, had been in the midst of a disastrous drought, losing eight straight Olympic events before winning gold in the slalom on Wednesday.
Despite being a favorite to medal multiple times, her recent performances dating back to the 2022 Beijing games have been shocking – she finished ninth or worse three times and failed to finish the course in three other events.
Dr Ulrick Vieux, a double-board-certified psychiatrist, told the Daily Mail that this is not a case of top athletes forgetting how to skate or ski. Instead, he claimed the issue likely sits in the amygdala, the brain’s emotional response center.
‘It’s kind of like your heart,’ Vieux explained. ‘When you’re nervous, your heart starts to be really, really, really fast. It’s kind of going overboard, and it’s releasing [stress hormone] cortisol.’
Ferraro claimed that American athletes, from the college ranks to the pros and even the Olympics, are mentally ‘wired differently’ than the average person.
However, even they can crack under the massive spotlight of events like the Olympics, where media attention, financial endorsements and fans standing everywhere create more stress than they’re typically accustomed to seeing.
Shiffrin has admitted to feeling physically ill before major skiing events
Dr Tom Ferraro believes that American athletes are becoming more prone to mental illness
They can become anxious and ‘other-oriented,’ meaning they lose focus on their own well-being and performance as external expectations grow.
‘They think about the media, they think about television, they think about money, they think about the agent, they think about traveling, they think about the audience, they think about the fan. They lose themselves,’ Ferraro claimed.
‘It’s called situational acquired narcissism. You become narcissistic – you become, in some way, arrogant. And then you also become very nervous, anxious, never happy about anything.’
Vieux said the challenges for athletes in solo sports such as figure skating or skiing could be particularly intense.
‘When you have literally all eyes on you, one of the things that can make it a little bit problematic is this concept of feeling lonely, this concept of isolation,’ he said.
Ferraro said mental illness has become a growing issue in sports across the board. He singled out top athletes Naomi Osaka, Michael Phelps and Simone Biles as the ‘poster children’ for anxiety, depression and breakdowns.
He noted these problems are not unique to sports, and the issues were amplified by modern factors such as social media, the use of AI and information overload, causing an ‘anxiety and depressive epidemic’ among American youths.
Malinin’s skating teammate, Amber Glenn, has been outspoken about the backlash she’s received on social media after making statements critical of the Trump Administration, pushing her to quit posting during the winter games.
On Tuesday, Glenn appeared emotionally distraught and broke into tears after a critical error in her short program sent her to 13th place in the ladies’ individual medal event.
Ferraro claimed that the current field of sports psychology in the US was failing top athletes, who he believed needed long-term and continuous care to avoid ‘choking.’
‘Most sports psychology [treatment today], 98 percent of it, essentially, is cognitive behavioral,’ he said, adding that many athletes are told they’re ‘done’ after just six sessions.
‘The athlete is under so much pressure that regular cognitive behavior therapy is completely… ridiculous.’
He advocated for long-term psychoanalysis, possibly hundreds of hours, to build up mental defenses, explore their personal issues and resolve deep conflicts that seem to rise in pressure-filled moments.
Vieux suggested that one of the major skills athletes focus on is breathing. He said that when anxiety takes over, they’re not breathing correctly, and that dysfunction can affect their entire body.
Once an athlete chokes during the biggest moment of their career, red flags can begin to appear almost immediately, Ferraro said.
US figure skater Amber Glenn has been outspoken about the criticism she’s received on social media. A major error in her performance sent her to 13th place after the short program
Fans of Malinin grew concerned for his safety after he choked at the Olympics
Post-failure, the doctor noted cases where athletes turned to drinking or drugs, fell into depression or hinted that they were considering self-harm.
In the case of Malinin, an overwhelming favorite for the individual men’s gold medal, his historic collapse to eighth place was quickly followed by worrisome posts on social media.
Thousands of fans expressed concern after Malinin reposted several vulnerable TikToks, including one in which Fox reported him saying: ‘Sometimes I wish something bad would just happen to me so I don’t have to do it myself.’
Another repost reportedly said: ‘It hurts because I’m trying my hardest, but nothing I do is ever good enough for anything or anyone.’
Shiffrin, 30, who has won more World Cup skiing races than anyone in history (108), has publicly admitted to feeling physically ill before major skiing events, regardless of whether she wins or loses – another red flag for underlying mental health issues, according to Ferraro.
‘This is also a very common thing,’ he said. ‘They get dizzy, lightheaded, they throw up, they have migraine headaches, this tremendous tension that they’re dealing with, that sometimes they throw up, they get rid of it.’
