Player's Own Voice podcast: Athletes living with loss

After years of working in communications for high-performance sports, Dina Bell-Laroche has witnessed many extremes of emotion. But the moment that altered her career forever was the death of her sister, nearly 20 years ago. The grief and her experience in sport combined for Bell-Laroche and led her to coaching and counselling athletes who are dealing with loss in its many forms.

With national athletes enduring the post-Olympic Blues right now, the time is fitting for some clear thinking about how athletes process setbacks and loss in sports.

Part of the goal is to get rid of myths. Grief is not the exclusive privilege of people who have had a death in the family. For athletes, bereavement can flow from a big loss, naturally, but it can also accumulate slowly and creep up on competitors. After a career devoted to sport, retirement can churn up many underexamined disappointments and losses, too.  

The trouble starts when sports rewards a stoic approach. "Shake it off. There'll be another game. Focus on getting that next win."

These attitudes mean well, but they can push athletes into traumatizing silence.

Bell-Laroche's discipline is Thanatology — the study of grief and death. The ancient Greeks said there are only two themes in tragedy: Eros and Thanatos. Love and Death.

Bell-Laroche would argue they are inextricably linked. We only mourn losing what we love. And that can include a dashed dream of Olympic glory.

Like the CBC Sports' Player's Own Voice essay series, POV podcast lets athletes speak to Canadians about issues from a personal perspective.  

Transcripts are provided for our hard of hearing audience. To listen to Dina Bell-Laroche or any of the guests from earlier episodes, and more Canadian athletes from