Federer’s retirement shows professionals peak later and stretch their careers more and more
One of the phrases in self-help books is that age is a state of mind. There can be elderly people in their 30s and adolescents in their 60s or 70s. In the case of sports, especially professional and elite sports, this reality collides with physical exhaustion.
Roger Federer has decided to hang up his racket for good. The Laver Cup was the last tournament with the legendary Swiss tennis player in attendance, after more than a year battling a knee that underwent three surgeries. The other two helped him keep going, but he gave up. «I no longer believed that I could keep playing (.) The past three years have been very difficult, in short, he emphasized in a recent interview.
Born in 1981, Federer leaves with 20 Grand Slams behind him and has starred in a legendary rivalry with Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The presence of these titans of the racket has, in part, made it last much longer than is reasonable for a tennis player. Pete Sampras, who had won the most Grand Slams until Federer’s arrival, retired at the age of 32.
Of the same generation as Federer is a Fernando Alonso who for years has been chasing the dream of the third Formula 1 world championship, who has passed through several phases and who now wants to put the icing on the cake at Aston Martin of a career that will be legendary, more because his age than by the numbers, that too.
At the next Singapore GP, he will be the driver with the most races in the history of the competition, and he has two or three years left in the big circus before moving on to other disciplines. The Dakar, where he takes the example of the veteran Carlos Sainz (60 years), will be one of his next challenges.
The case of Alonso, like Federer’s, or that of an Alejandro Valverde who, at the age of 42 (the age when the legendary Valentino Rossi retired from motorcycling), is less and less exceptional.
While that 40-year mark still exists, many decide to go beyond what seemed impossible not so long ago. Those who make the decision to continue often take the same approach: “As long as I’m feeling competitive and my body is holding up.” Therein lies the crux of the matter: recovery and physique take their toll.
“The decision to leave is based on a correct visualization of your future. Normally they will have to compete with much younger people and it is true that because they are very competitive people, their fitness level is 100%, but they will not be able to prevent metabolic and muscle aging,” said José Antonio Martín Urrialde, doctor and professor of physiotherapy at CEU San Pablo University and a sports medicine specialist.
In that sense, mental preparation is key and they must accept that those who grew up seeing their success are now their rivals. “They are people who are used to winning and all of a sudden they get into a phase where winning can be an option, but also losing an option because a younger rival arrives. Especially in individual sports, such as in Formula 1 with Fernando Alonso or in tennis with Federer himself and, I assume, the case of Nadal when he arrives,” admits Professor Martín Urrialde.
The decision to retire is not always a conscious one. There are many elite athletes who have been forced to leave him because of the accumulation of injuries, in Federer’s case, or because of unexpected ailments, as happened to Iker Casillas. The international goalkeeper was forced to hang up his gloves at night when he suffered a heart attack during training. He depended on his family and closest friends to go home from day to day for training and competitions (and the last one, off the couch).
If it hadn’t been for that heart problem, he would still be active at age 41 (he’s 81, like Federer or Alonso), as would his idol and friend, Gianluigi Buffon, who died for the final stretch at age 44. of his storied career is in Serie B Parma until at least 2024.
As old as Casillas is Joaquín, legend and standard-bearer of Betis, who is already preparing to leave the playing fields with his program ‘El Novato’ to take the television world by storm. The one from Puerto de Santamaría had planned to leave in the summer of 2022, but he decided to cancel the Copa del Rey. Another season seemed mandatory before devoting himself to television.
With over 40 years of age, the decision to retire is not an easy one because the barrier is clear. Many of them already have a more than regular family life and go from a trip around the world to enjoy their own life at home.
Kimi Raikkonen, Alonso’s immediate predecessor in F1, retired in 2021 with two children and a wife; the Asturian, on the other hand, is not even married. Both one and the other should think carefully about what to do and not fall into complacency. In other words, they need to learn that the walls of their homes, no matter how luxurious they are, don’t fall on them. Coming back to the Alonso case, he left in 2018 realizing that he missed him too much.
Mental preparation is just as important as physical preparation to prepare for the end of the professional stage in competition, and there are many elite champions who rely on specialists such as Amaia Tainta, a sports psychologist and visiting professor on the Master’s Degree in General Health Psychology at the University of Navarre.
“The years before the decision to retire is usually complicated and there are three phases: before, during and after. In the ‘before’ we work on the fears the athlete may have about this withdrawal, and how to anticipate and plan for them. Once the decision is made (the during), the most important thing is to focus on the athlete enjoying the sport activity. Finally, the (after) work is done in the months after the withdrawal in which the athlete manages to adapt to his new way of life and to face his new challenges,” he points out in this regard. That work, whether individually or with assistance, is essential to make the transition from country to retirement smooth and seamless.
What is clear is that, just like in pharmacy, there is everything in sport. There are idols who prefer to leave it at 30 with half a life to live and there are those who prefer to be the grandparents of their sport until it forces them to leave. Whether 30, 35 or 40, only a select few can leave with the legendary vitola, the case of a Roger Federer who will remain one of the greatest of all time.
Source: La Verdad
I’m an experienced news author and editor based in New York City. I specialize in covering healthcare news stories for Today Times Live, helping to keep readers informed on the latest developments related to the industry. I have a deep understanding of medical topics, including emerging treatments and drugs, the changing laws that regulate healthcare providers, and other matters that affect public health.
