Sydney: You've run your last race or played your last game at the Sydney Olympics. Now what?

Psychologists and other experts warn that the 16,000 athletes who took part in the world's biggest sports event risk a case of "post-Olympic blues".

"It's the greatest sporting achievement in the world, and you simply can't stay on that high forever. There's a huge downside," the Australian team's sports psychologist Michael Martin told the ‘Sunday Telegraph’ newspaper.

He said it depended on how well an athlete had performed at the Games, which close on Sunday.

"A gold winner may take a year to come off the high. They could have speaking engagements and endorsements taking up their time," he said.

"But at some point, the fact that they are just another person will hit home, and when it does it can be devastating."

Australian rower James Stewart -- a bronze medallist with brother Geoffrey in the heavyweight men's coxless fours in Sydney -- knows all too well about the post-Games blues.

After competing in Atlanta four years ago he came back on a high."Everyone was cheering, there was a tickertape parade -- and then reality set in," he told the newspaper.

"I had to go back to university and find a job. You come back and there is nothing. You do experience a little bit of depression."



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