The life of an international athlete is hectic and can be very stressful. Just the training itself can be taxing on anyone. For instance; and athlete that is going to the Olympics, trains at least a couple years before, and returning Olympians train from the time they finish the last Olympics to the beginning of the next ones. International athletes put a tremendous amount of stress on themselves to always better their last results and beating everyone else is just a bonus, but I the end that comes second.
The impact of the family members, individual members, and the media is very straining; however, support is needed by these people to give the athlete good self esteem and pride. That support helps the athlete to be more confident in themselves, and to be competitive enough to win. Those support agents can also have and adverse effect on an athlete. There is a fine line between support and pressure, and if pressured an athlete may breakdown or try to hard, thus leading to a poorer performance. A prime example of the pressure that is put on athletes was seen in the Canadian Mens Olympic Hockey team, who went into the event being told that anything less than Gold was unacceptable. (Fortunately, the team did manage to get past the pressure and won!)
Some effects of notoriety and loss of privacy associated with fame would be that the Olympians are followed, taped and photographed every where they go. As with any person in the public, their life becomes an open house. The media can sometimes make false accusations about Olympians, which in turn, can ruin their reputation and possibly their lives. For some reason, people like to hear about the bad stuff, so even the slightest mistake will attract media to it, and just for the sake of public interest.
Some changes that would occur in a gold medal winners life is that they become heros and icons in their home country and possibly around the world. The media and fans alike, would put them on a pedestal. The medallist would have a lot of pride in themselves; friends and family would also be proud, and would praise them for how far they have come and what they have accomplished.