Dear Sturla: The Olympics Is Not Couples Therapy
SEX ADVICE | FEBRUARY 12, 2026
5 MIN READ
WORDS by Jona Montoya
At the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games, Sturla Holm Lægreid won a bronze medal in the 20km biathlon. That is objectively impressive. Ski fast. Shoot straight. Don’t collapse. Most of us can’t manage one of those on a good day.
And then, with a medal round his neck and a global microphone inches from his face, he decided this was the moment to confess that he had cheated on his girlfriend.
Not to her.
To us.
Let’s separate a few things, because adults ought to be able to do that.
Cheating is bad. Feeling guilty about cheating is good. Confessing to the person you hurt is necessary. Confessing to the entire planet during the Olympics? That’s… something else.
Here’s the problem: public confession can look like accountability, but often it’s simply emotional outsourcing. You feel dreadful. You want relief. There’s a camera. There are millions of sympathetic strangers. You cry. They applaud your vulnerability. You feel lighter.
Meanwhile, the person you betrayed is now an unwilling supporting character in your redemption arc.
If you truly believe you ‘had the gold medal in life’, you don’t announce that you dropped it on live television. You pick up the phone. You book the therapy. You sit in the discomfort. Quietly.
Because remorse isn’t measured in decibels.
There’s also something fundamentally unfair about staging a personal reckoning in a place designed for achievement. Your team-mate wins gold. Your country celebrates. And suddenly the story isn’t about the race — it’s about your conscience.
That’s not bravery. That’s poor timing.
Look, elite athletes are human. Humans panic. Humans overshare. Fine. But let’s retire the idea that every tear shed in public is noble. Sometimes it’s simply a man overwhelmed by his own guilt and mistaking exposure for repair.
If you cheat and want forgiveness, here’s the grown-up playbook:
Apologise directly.
Accept that forgiveness may not come.
Change your behaviour.
Keep the cameras out of it.
The Olympics tests endurance, aim, composure under pressure.
Relationships test something harder: RESTRAINT.
You don’t get your points back because you cried. Or maybe you will…
