Earlier this week, Casey Stoner told the Gypsy Tales podcast that he struggled with anxiety throughout his career, but he was only recently diagnosed with anxiety. The 2007 and 2011 MotoGP world champion revealed that for a long time in his career, the more the weekend went well, the more he wanted to die, due to the anxiety that was affecting him negatively.
The Australian retired at the end of 2012 at just 27, after racing in MotoGP for seven seasons. Andrea Dovizioso, who was Stoner’s teammate at Honda in 2011, says he’s not too surprised to hear the revelations of the two-time world champion, because he believes it’s something that strikes many riders.
“Nobody knows what each rider feels, and everyone experiences the races in a completely different way, for many reasons,” said Dovizioso this Friday from Malaysia, where he is for the pre-season MotoGP tests. “I’m not too surprised, because if you follow a lot of stories from the greatest sportsmen in the world, they have a lot of problems in different ways. But this is the pressure of a decidedly demanding sport or the consequence of familiar things. Everything is at the limit, so every sportsman has a lot of pressure and in most cases they experience this situation not in a positive way, contrary to how many think “.
“So I’m not surprised. Each story is different, but I follow many sports and many motocross riders. These retired before the age of 30 while they were winning everything. It seems that if you run for 20 years and win a lot, managing the pressure every year gets worse and worse. It’s a little weird, but it happens a lot of times. Therefore, it is one of the reasons why athletes retire when they are still very competitive or have a big contract in hand. But this is the reality ”.
When Motorsport.com asked him how social media can affect a driver’s pressure nowadays, he adds: “Certainly now social networks influence a lot more than in the past. I don’t think when Casey had these problems, social media was as important as it is now. But it is a question of the importance of the championship, how much it is, how many people follow it and this is related to the pressure. I think when you win a lot and show how strong you are, it creates a weird situation where you always have to be like that at every race. I think this is difficult for a certain type of athlete. It is almost impossible to stay on the same level for a long time, and when you are used to winning but at some point it starts to get difficult, there is a reason, it is complicated to manage. In my opinion, this is why it happens ”.
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