At the height of her career, the Israeli judoka was overwhelmed by emptiness, then suffered a serious shoulder injury; now she speaks about vulnerability in professional sports, lessons from Yarden Gerbi and why a true champion needs a life beyond the matTal Giladi|The most effective warning Inbar Lanir received about life after an Olympic medal came from the German rival she had thrown for an ippon only minutes earlier. “She won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, and as soon as we stepped off the mat and finished the team weigh-in, she told me, ‘Be prepared for what comes afterward, because it's a serious drop, and it's going to come,’” Lanir recalled.It came sooner than the Israeli world champion and Paris 2024 silver medalist expected. GalleryInbar Lanir (Photo: Avigail Uzi)“I have been recording myself on video since I was 20, and speaking to the camera is a kind of therapeutic tool for me,” she said. “About a week after the Olympics, I am sitting in the living room of my apartment and saying something like, ‘I’m sitting here, I don’t have the energy to shower, I picked at my entire face and it is covered in pimples because an article about me is coming out tomorrow and that is very stressful. My house is a mess, my refrigerator is empty, I don’t have the strength to go shopping and I don’t want to order food because I’m already disgusted by it.’“And I don’t want to talk to anyone or burden them with my feelings, because everyone has been dealing with me and the medal for a month. I don’t want to come to them with my sadness and have them think, ‘Why are you complaining now? You won an Olympic medal. You’re on top of the world.’”What happened to you?