The Atlantic meant well. Its post-Olympics feature examines the depression that athletes often suffer after such sports events, as they strive to cope with their futures and stress linked to big wins and big defeats.

It's a literate, sympathetic piece, gently but incisively examining the emotional crash; the reluctance to ask for help; how intensely athletes identify with their achievements; how much they fear losing themselves by losing in competition.

Almost every angle is covered, it seems, but -- you knew this was coming -- the spiritual one. The story leaves Mount Olympus haunted with religious "ghosts."

This is the kind of eloquent passage that makes me loathe to write off the article totally:

Take the Michigan-born swimmer Allison Schmitt. After winning five medals, three of them gold, and setting a world record in the 2012 London Games, Schmitt sank into a hole from which she couldn’t emerge. She had no idea why she felt depressed -- especially considering her undeniable success -- but realized she needed counseling. The decision didn’t come easily; depression is still a dirty word in the locker room.

"I didn’t want to show my weakness," she said in an interview with Channel 4 in Detroit. "I didn’t want to ask for help, but in this situation I found out … that I couldn’t keep fighting it by myself. … There’s this thing that they call post-Olympic blues and I think I had a little bit of that and I kept isolating myself and isolating myself."

The Atlantic also quotes sports psychologist Scott Goldman noting that the Olympics amount to a "hundred-mile-per-hour ride" that "comes to a screeching halt." He says the sudden end leaves athletes "just physiologically depleted, as well as psychologically."

The 2016 Olympic womens gymnastics competition is over and the medals all awarded, but one gymnast seemed to have a rougher time than the others. That would be the 2012 Olympics all-around champ Gabby Douglas, who this time around didn’t come close to her triumph of four years ago.

Those of us who’ve been following gymnastics since Russian Olga Korbut’s smash 1972 Olympics performances know that women gymnasts who are gold medalists in one Olympics rarely do better four years later. In 1976, Korbut was not the star -- but Nadia Comaneci of Romania was. There are exceptions, such as Aly Raisman, but generally that’s been the rule.

The following USA Today piece is typical of what Douglas' second week of competition has been like. There is much more to this painful, social-media ordeal than people criticizing her scores in Rio 2016. Legions of people are even making fun of her hair. USA Today notes:

RIO DE JANEIRO –- If there was any doubt Gabby Douglas was hurting, that the Olympics had become far more painful than she’d ever imagined after her decision to return for an encore, it was all erased not long after she finished seventh in the uneven bars on Sunday.

For nearly 10 minutes after the likely final event of her career, the 20-year-old American, who had such a thrill ride four years ago in London, spoke with reporters about the emotional roller coaster here. As if failing to qualify for the individual all-around finals after winning in groundbreaking fashion in 2012 and earning just the team gold weren’t enough, she was criticized at every turn in the social media spectrum so often devoid of humanity.

They said she was unpatriotic on Wednesday, when Douglas was the only member of the Final Five who didn’t place her hand on her heart during the national anthem after they won gold. They said she was bitter on Thursday, when Simone Biles won the individual all-around, Aly Raisman won silver and Douglas -- who was clapping -- didn’t stand and cheer like her teammates Laurie Hernandez and Madison Kocian.

The article goes on to chronicle her misfortunes this past week but it does not refer to her much-documented brand of stoic Christianity that has brought her through tough times.