Olympic hockey champ warns of mental pressures for elite athletes

....Richardson-Walsh, who became the youngest woman to represent Britain in hockey at an Olympics at the age of 18, says it is almost impossible to switch off.

"When I woke up in the morning I had to put a heart monitor on my finger before I had breakfast," she said.

"It told me how many hours I had slept. For breakfast the question was `what am I going to eat?` not `what do I want to eat?`.

"The young may want so much to think about being an athlete but it is 24/7, you don`t go to get home at five, job done. You have to think about everything you have to do. Transitioning into that is a big thing."....

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Bethany`s Notes: We talk a lot about retiring from sport and how challenging it is yet Richardson-Walsh reminds us of how hard it is to make sport your job, especially for someone at such a young age. It is a good read to remind us how critical the transition in and out of sport really challenges athletes.