Sanita Puspure: ‘Unfairness, bias, and lack of transparency is very damaging when you are putting your life on hold and giving rowing 100 per cent of your time and effort.’ Photo: Daragh McSweeney
“Currently there are 12 people from the Rowing Ireland high performance team seeking help from a clinical psychologist; three of them are working with a psychiatrist and are on medication to improve their condition. Not many athletes are brave enough to speak up as everyone is afraid for their seats. How many more mental illnesses do we need in the high performance system for someone to look at this programme properly? Unfairness, bias, and lack of transparency is very damaging when you are putting your life on hold and giving rowing 100 per cent of your time and effort.
“I’ve been in the high performance environment for 15 years. I’ve seen a lot of athletes come and go. Some of them left happy. Lately, there hasn’t been an athlete who would retire or step away from the sport with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. The majority of athletes leave broken, abused by the system. Some of them will never come back to sport and will never even engage in any rowing related activities.”