Daisuke Takahashi: “Because of an injury I felt the pressure of whether I could make it to the 2010 Olympics. I left home, ran away due to the pressure, and became unreachable for about two weeks.”
Daisuke Takahashi about pressure before the Olympics.
source: tokyo-sports.co.jp dd. 10th August 2023
Daisuke Takahashi (37) appeared on the Fuji TV show “Poka Poka” on the August 10th and spoke about his past experience of becoming unreachable due to the pressure of the Olympics.
When touching upon the intense pressure of the Olympics, Takahashi mentioned, “Just before the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, I injured my anterior cruciate ligament. At that point, the rehabilitation was quite intense, and I felt the pressure of whether I could make it to the Olympics. I left home, ran away due to the pressure, and became unreachable for about two weeks. I told my coach something like, ‘I can’t skate anymore.'”
Regarding the period of being unreachable, he said, “I don’t have any memory.” He added, “I went to Osaka, and I didn’t want to go back home to Kyoto, so I probably went to Tokyo. But I don’t have memories of what I did after coming to Tokyo.” It seems his mental state had reached its limits.
He mentioned that the coach’s encouragement was the trigger for his return. “When I came home, thinking things were bad as they were, my coach said, ‘It’s okay, you can quit,’ and that made me feel a bit relieved. If he had said, ‘Do your best,’ I might have thought it was impossible. Not being forced to return allowed me to come back,” he explained.
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