Ardashev R.G.
East Siberian Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk

Keywords: sports competitions, suicide, sports, athletes

Introduction. Suicide is a negative phenomenon and serves as an indicator of how a person fails to cope with life's difficulties. There are known cases of its occurrence within the sports community. Suicide can have biological causes (genetic predisposition), psychological causes (inability to accept/solve personal problems), and social causes (external factors influencing the individual).

Research Objective — to analyze the characteristics of suicide among athletes.

Methodology and Research Organization. We conducted a study using the method of content analysis of publications on the Internet by searching for "suicide of athletes" and identified 1,200 publications on this topic over the past 30 years. These included publications about suicides of Soviet athletes (historical analysis) as well as publications about suicides of modern athletes. On average, 6 to 12 suicides occur among athletes each year. However, these are well-known athletes — Olympic and world championship medalists. Articles are not written about ordinary athletes who have not won first places in various competitions [1]. Their percentage is higher.

Moreover, the public resonance generated by such reports affects the consciousness of fans and followers of a particular athlete and, according to foreign researchers, increases the number of suicide attempts among them by four times [2]. No such statistics have been found among domestic researchers.

Research Results and Discussion. We identified several connotations in the descriptions of suicides committed by athletes.

Suicide is evaluated emotionally. In 43% of publications, it is described with life examples and difficulties. This encourages emotional engagement with the publication and empathy for the athlete. For example, in 1982, footballer V. Berezin, after a divorce and the onset of depression, suffocated himself with exhaust fumes from his own car in a garage. Or, in 1977, footballer L. Adamov jumped out of a window due to problems with his wife and daughter. In 2016, hockey player P. Devyatkin took his own life due to a large amount of debt. In 2014, footballer M. Potylchak hanged himself in his apartment due to business problems and significant debts.

35% of publications cover the event from a detached perspective but not formally, instead encouraging involvement in support and attention to one side. For example, the distress of S. Ovchinnikov over the defeat of the Russian women's volleyball team in London led to him hanging himself during training camp in Croatia in 2012. Similarly, E. Vashchenko jumped from the 12th floor due to failure at the 2012 Olympics.

A number of publications (22%) document mental illnesses among athletes that led to suicide. For example, in 1989, hockey player E. Belosheykin hanged himself due to depression after being expelled from CSKA and SKA and Izhorets.

Conclusions. Suicide directly contradicts the spirit of sports, indicating that a person has given up and, therefore, lost. However, as a social phenomenon, it exists. Therefore, psychological work with athletes is crucial for the prevention of suicidal behavior. Additionally, it is important to publish information about athlete suicides in the media and on the Internet more carefully and accurately, as it can influence the behavior of fans and followers.

References

1. Ardashev R.G. (2023). The philosophy of suicide in practical terms. The Problem of the Relationship Between the Natural and the Social in Society and the Individual, 14, 119-125.
2. Polyushkevich O.A. (2019). Stigmatization: Analysis within the framework of E. Goffman's concept. Philosophy of Health: An Integrative Approach. Interuniversity Collection of Scientific Papers, Irkutsk, 24-29.