The six-time world sailing champion on how to avoid burnout in the face of exhaustion
She began the season in the spring of that year training in Mexico, before heading to Switzerland and then the Regata Trofea Sofia in Palma, Spain, to race. She would then be faced with French Olympic Week and the regattas that accompanied it, before the Olympic Test Event at the Paris 2024 sailing venue in Marseille, France.
The constant traveling started to catch up with her and at the regatta in Spain, she missed out on the podium to come fourth for the first time in her kiting career.
“I started racing internationally in 2015 and I have won almost every regatta I have competed in so far. Not even getting on the podium was unthinkable. It was a hard pill to swallow,” she wrote on her blog.
The Olympic Test Event in Marseille was just a few weeks away, where she would have to turn around and look for another world-class performance if she was to secure a place at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“Honestly, I was feeling really tired and fatigued because of such a long lockdown in France. Even though I had established a good routine, just being there and surviving the summer heat was exhausting,” she wrote.
But she was excited to start running again and managed a third place – something she said she was disappointed in, but happy to have achieved her goal of securing an Olympic quota.
The qualifications were simply not enough to avoid the burnout that was seemingly inevitable with the amount of work invested.
“Despite this nagging feeling of lack of motivation, I kept pushing and working… I thought I was just pushing myself in a good way – after all, I feel like I’ve always been told that if I work harder and put in more hours than my competitors, I’ll automatically have better results, right? This could not be more inaccurate.”
Then burnout hit, and hit hard.
Moroz felt lost in her sport and began talking to sports psychologists before making the decision to take a break in August 2023 – something that was much needed to completely change her mindset and fall in love with her sport once again.
She returned to the water in January of the Olympic year.
“At the start of this year, I’m excited about all my training and can’t wait for my next workout. And I’m really excited to run again. It’s crazy, after ten years of playing this sport, I still learn something every day and I continue to get better and better every day. And I feel very rewarded for that,” she told Olympics.com in April.
