The death of a great young athlete shines a light on part of ourselves we would rather ignore …

Olympian Olivia Podmore will never know that her life would have got better, that she could have found happiness and gained a greater purpose again. That is one of the greatest tragedies behind any young person's death.

As we revelled in the Olympics and enjoyed the glory of victory, her death has shone a light on something we have all been trying hard to ignore: the Olympic spirit is not all about friendly competition. It's about winning – sometimes at the cost of the human spirit.

As both fans and sports people, we need to learn a deeper way of expressing this human impulse for competition. We need to move beyond a reductive impulse to rank people from best to worst. Each of us are multi-faceted and complex. A sports person is also a person who has relationships and emotional depth, who can suffer and find joy in equal measures.

We're great at lifting people up to the top. We need to get better at supporting them on the way down.

By Ingrid Barratt