Becoming an Olympic athlete takes years of gruelling training where their bodies, and minds, are being pushed to the absolute limit.
We only see the highs they enjoy if they go on to win a medal, but there has been endless days of early starts, strict diets and injuries they’ve had to endure.
Simone Biles’ decision to withdraw from the gymnastics team final and all-around final, in order to prioritise her mental health, highlighted the pressure being a top athlete can bring.
The gruelling nature of elite sport is something that is rarely touched upon.
The highs can be really high and the lows can be really low, as highlighted by a BBC documentary in 2000 called Gold Fever.
It followed Steve Redgrave and his British rowing coxless four teammates as they prepared for the Sydney Games.
It shows Redgrave, training to win a fifth gold medal, pushing his body to the point of exhaustion as he eventually collapsed while on a rowing machine before being helped back on by his teammates.
Those tough training sessions ultimately paid off in the end as they won a gold medal. But the cost of success should not be underestimated.
Sport is a ruthless business and there are no shortcuts. Hard work and long days are what gets talented athletes to that elite level.
The parents of those athletes are ones who have to make sacrifices, too, but seeing their sons and daughters win a medal finally makes it all worth it.
Matthew Richards was among those who picked up gold as part of the 4x200m freestyle team in Tokyo and his father, Simon, joined talkSPORT to give an insight what it has been like.
He said: “It’s a brutal sport. There’s no tricks or shortcuts. There’s hour after hour following the black line of the pool.
“For the parents out there, it is really hard work. You do everything you can to support your kids.
“I remember Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day in 2019 getting up with him in the middle of the night to take him training because his coach was prepared to get up and support him and train him.
“It’s those hours and effort you put in were for moments like [winning a gold medal].”
Tom Dean was also part of that team as he became a double Olympic champion – the first British male swimmer to win more than one gold medal at a single Olympics in 113 years.
Dean’s mum, Jacquie Hughes, joined talkSPORT yesterday to share her joy after her son became an Olympic champion, but also how tough it has been.
She said: “I don’t think I have processed it yet. Today (Tuesday) seems a bit of a whirlwind. People want to talk about what happened in the pool and loads of people have seen that mad video of us in the garden.
“For any parent just starting their kids learning to swim, if you laid out what their journey might look like, the highs might be incredible but if you laid out what it might mean for them as parents and as a family. I think very few would grasp it with both hands, it is a slog.”
And Biles is someone who definitely has not had it easy on her way to becoming the most famous Olympian on the planet.
Her early life saw her entered into foster care and she later bravely revealed, in 2018, that she was one of hundreds of victims of US team doctor Larry Nasser, who was ordered to serve more than 100 years in prison.
Yet she continued to focus on her career, pushing the boundaries until she could take it no more.
Someone who understands the weight of gold is former US swimmer Michael Phelps.
“We carry a lot of things and a lot of weight on our shoulders,” he said.
“It’s challenging, especially when we have the lights on us and all the expectations that are being thrown on top of us.”
The Olympics can be overwhelming and Biles is simply pointing out it’s okay to not be okay.