The 2024 Paris Olympics has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for Indian athletes. While the country's haul of six medals makes this their second-best performance at an Olympics, there were a number of events that made the headlines as much as the medal wins. This includes the six fourth-place finishes for Indians in different events and Vinesh Phogat's stunning disqualification after she became the first from the country to qualify for the finals of a wrestling event at the Olympics.

The Games are pretty much the biggest event for any athlete and often the occasion for which they work towards their entire career. Rani Rampal, who had led the Indian women's hockey team to a historic fourth-placed finish in, knows a thing or two about the emptiness an athlete might feel after the Olympics. With the 2024 Paris Games coming to an end, Rani shared a note written originally by Brooke Neal, the New Zealand women's hockey player. Neal had earned a lot of praise for the depth of her analysis and the empathy she expressed so eloquently right after the Black Sticks Women's campaign at the Tokyo Olympics.

"Everyone prepares you for medals but no one prepares you what happens afterwards. So you might be a little confused right about now. You've just competed at the world's biggest sporting event and yet, this is one of the lowest times you've ever felt. You have been in this bubble, your own little world, with 10,000 athletes who are at the top of their game. You have poured blood, sweat and tears to get there, but you weren't really prepared for the day after. For the week after. For the months after this huge spectacle," Brooke said in her message.

"You weren't prepared for life to continue as if nothing happened. When you walk down the street and from the outside, you still look the same. But your insides are still processing all that you've been through, and no one can see that. 'They don't understand', you might think. Not even your close friends and family," she further added.

The women's hockey team missed out on qualification to the Olympics, thus making for a disappointing follow-up to a rather historical performance in Tokyo. Rani herself, on the other hand, has had a rough time of it since the Olympics in 2021. She fell out of favour with head coach Janneke Schopmann and has hardly managed to play for India since Tokyo.

Read Also: Time for India to focus on methods over medals