Sam Oldham: Building a Healthy Space For All Athletes

At the beginning of 2023, British Olympian Sam Oldham created The Sam Oldham Podcast. A gymnastics-based podcast focusing on each aspect of the sport, including competition recaps, as well as the behind-the-scenes of the sport that fans do not see, such as athletes’ highest moments in the sport, mental health struggles, and the journey to success. The original version of the show began as Oldham conducting interviews in places such as barber shops and food truck stores, but it coincided with the end of Oldham’s career, putting it on pause. When Oldham retired, he immediately came back to the idea, with producer Sam Lindley by his side. When creating the podcast, Oldham always envisioned an interview centric show. However, Lindley suggested that he needed 25 episodes alone to tell his gymnastics journey. 

“I was like, wow,” Oldham said. “What would I talk about for  25 episodes? That seems like a lot. For the first three episodes, I just told the journey of my story towards the 2012 Olympics, missing out on the Rio Olympics, and then the final chapter of my career. fter that, I started to delve into different topics. So whether it was leadership, building self confidence, how I would prepare my routines, or the mental side of sport, and my experiences of my career, I used those and drew upon them to share these stories, and people seem to really like them.” 

Since that time, Oldham has released over 130 episodes, which includes engaging and entertaining interviews from athletes all around the world. Oldham’s journey in the sport from winning an Olympic medal in 2012 to the disappointment of missing the Olympic team in 2016, as well as battling his own mental health problems has made him the perfect outlet for athletes to tell their stories. The podcast has allowed him to interview some of the biggest names in the sport, including four time Olympian and his personal idol Fabian Hambüchen. More recently, he interviewed his first gymnast from Asia, Kazuma Kaya, the captain of the 2024 Japanese Olympic team that won team gold. 

“For me personally, having the opportunity to fly out to Germany and film with one of my idols, Fabian Hambüchen was just, you know, they say, don’t meet your idols because they’ll disappoint you. But that has not been my experience when I’ve met the best of the best,” Oldham said. “I realized pretty quickly that a lot of the people that listen to our podcast, or a lot of the top athletes in the sport, really enjoy it and get a lot of value from it. So for anybody that’s maybe a gymnastics brand or gymnastics company, it’s kind of like targeted advertisement, because they’re the people you want to kind of talk to and get your products in front of.”

Growing The Sport

One of the goals of Oldham’s podcast is to help gymnastics grow. For years, Oldham has interviewed gymnasts who tell him stories about how they are constantly winning major medals for their federations, and not receiving major financial support from their success. Many gymnasts have to showcase consistency and win multiple medals at the biggest stage in order to have brands interested in sponsoring them. Oldham also attributes this issue to only having one or two major televised events a year in certain parts of the world. This does not allow for viewers to buy into an athlete’s journey and see the ups and downs of their career. He believes creating a competition using the 10.0 scoring system could help to get more eyeballs on the sport, and allow for gymnasts to compete more frequently and could create the opportunity for retired gymnasts such as himself to return to competition. 

“Me and a few of my old teammates, at the moment, we’re training to do a small exhibition competition next year,” Oldham says. “So the idea is that we’re going to test out a little format, a 10.0 format.” 

He believes bringing the 10.0 format to these competitions could attract more casual fans and thus grow the sport in general. Oldham’s ideas for evaluating the sports are never ending. Currently he is brainstorming ideas for a made for TV competition similar to the Pro Gymnastics Challenge he competed in in 2013. Oldham also applauded the FIG for the changes they have been making over the last couple of years, including creating more mixed team competitions, changing the team final format at Olympic Games and World Championships, and this year having all six events rotating simultaneously in the men’s All-Around final at the World Championships. 

“The more the FIG and the IOC can do that for LA to really harness that huge fan base in America women’s gymnastics, that would be a very smart thing. And I think men’s gymnastics will benefit.”

Mental Health 

Since Simone Biles overcame the “twisties” at the Olympics in 2021, mental health in gymnastics has moved to the forefront. During his career, Oldham also struggled with his mental health, specifically with ADHD. When he retired from the sport, he realized that there is not a lot of aftercare and support for the athletes as they transition out of the sport. 

“All of a sudden, you retire at the age of 25, to 30, and you come out into normal life, and you’re just expected to just adjust and fit in,” Oldham said. “So difficult, so challenging. It’s very isolating. All of a sudden, after you retire, you lose your community of people that understand you and you understand them, because you both have the context of each other’s life. That community is gone, the mentor you had, which would quite often be your coach, gone, and it’s a very lonely, lonely place to be.”

Oldham realized during his retirement that Elite gymnastics equips athletes with tools needed for future careers such as discipline, work ethic, and being able to work in a team. However, this can be challenging for the athlete to realize before their retirement and believes there needs to be more guidance during the transition. As Oldham sat in his home during a Covid lockdown towards the end of his career, he thought, “What am I going to do? Nobody’s coming to help me. As soon as I retire, I’m going to be left alone.” While Oldham’s fears may have come true, he was able to quickly find himself outside of the sport. 

“For me, I was very lucky that through circumstances of being taken off the GB team when I was 26 suffering with depression, anxiety, going into therapy, having to really deal with a lot of my demons and learn the coping mechanisms that were going to help me moving forwards and still doing gymnastics, but doing gymnastics without any expectations from sponsors, from a governing body, just doing it because I loved it,” Oldham said. “I was able to reframe my mindset and have a great experience those last two years, and also start to transition out of the sport before I finished.”

While Oldham went through his own ups and downs throughout his career, there was nothing he would change, ultimately noting that it was a positive experience. However, if he could change one thing it would be giving himself more self confidence. He struggled with self belief and typically needed someone uplifting him and not making him as critical. He had to tell himself that while gymnastics is of the utmost importance, there is more to life and at the end of the day you’re just doing cartwheels. Oldham’s support from his family helped him through his mental health issues. He considers his younger brother his hero and also notes that he saved his life. His dad was his biggest supporter and his coach Sergey Sizhanov taught him everything he needed to know about gymnastics, and life. 

“My dad believed in me more than I’d ever seen anybody believe in anyone before,” Oldham said. “My dad was my biggest supporter, and he kept me in the sport. He helped us financially support a family, and I’ll always, always be grateful to him for that. And taught me a lot about being a dad now, I’m a dad now, and I try to model myself a lot off my father and then my coach, what a man, one of the best gymnastics coaches in the world. He’s like a combination of Master Yoda, Rafiki out of Lion King, and Master Splinter out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He just speaks in riddles. I’ve never met anyone that loves gymnastics as much as him, and he taught me how to be a great gymnast, but he taught me how to be a great man.”

The Sam Oldham Podcast

Oldham takes a unique approach to his podcasts, providing a safe space for athletes to tell whatever story they wish to tell, whether that be in or out of the sport. His incredible hosting abilities makes the gymnasts comfortable and excited to talk with him, making for engaging and entertaining episodes. Oldham will continue to have major goals with increasing the popularity of the sport he is so passionate about, and one thing I learned with my conversation with him is that he will always achieve his goals. Check out The Sam Oldham Podcast anywhere you find your podcasts and on YouTube.

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