Silent retreat aids water polo team, and long jumper Malaika Mihambo
The US women’s water polo team needed a new challenge thought their head coach, Adam Krikorian, in 2019.
Eyeing a third consecutive Olympic title, at Tokyo 2020, a target already achieved in the world championships with a trio of triumphs, Krikorian recognised the team needed to be tested outside of their comfort zone to avoid getting complacent.
Cue the whole team heading to Bison Peak, Colorado for a seven-day silent retreat.
No phones, no social media, no TV, and no talking.
“Adam wanted to put us in an adverse situation,’’ the team’s captain Maggie Steffens told USA Today in July 2021. “He wanted to put this team in a situation that we’ve never been through before, and it worked.”
That situation was using mindfulness to manage stressful scenarios, using the silence to hone the ability to draw on self-observation, self-awareness, and other techniques key to being successful in high-pressure events.
“I mean, it was scary,” said Steffens. “We all were nervous heading into it. But it was really rewarding. It was a shared experience, shared adversity that we had to overcome together.’’
The US women’s team did indeed win gold again at Tokyo 2020, although a blip of a result of fourth at Paris 2024 was a surprise. But losing well is as important as winning to Krikorian, who has signed up again to coach the team heading to their home Olympic Games and a hoped-for redemption in front of a home crowd at LA28.
“For some of them, they’ve had so much success,” Krikorian shared, “if we’re going to sit here and we’re going to embrace all the positives and all the good things, and all the attention, and all the wins and all the accolades, we have got to stand up tall and embrace the pain.”
Another advocate of the silent retreat is Germany’s women’s long jump champion in 2020, Malaika Mihambo, who told Olympics.com: “I really love those meditation retreats where you focus for hours and hours in one day.
“I had one meditation course which lasted 10 days. It was in silence, so no speaking, not really writing, nothing, no kind of communication except with being with oneself,” said the silver medallist from Paris, and two-time world champion. “And that was really tough, one of the toughest things I’ve done in my life. It’s something that makes me stronger.”
Summing up those moments of repose, Mihambo wrote on Instagram:
“Let’s thrive in the calm.”