Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson has urged athletes to lead the discussion on mental health by sharing their struggles at the pinnacle of their sport.

The 11-time Paralympic champion believes by raising the curtain on the pressures of competing at elite level, athletes will empower people who do not work in sport to examine their own struggles with mental health.

Cardiff-born Grey-Thompson revealed sporting life, seen by many as a glamourous and privileged existence, comes with a level of expectation and sacrifice that can take its toll on mental well-being.

However, the 48-year-old is confident discussions on mental health in and out of sport can be highlighted further if athletes share their stories.

“It’s never-ending, it’s a conveyor belt,” she said. “It’s all about targets and times, you need to do certain things to get on the team, and then even if you win medals, you start at ground zero again at the next cycle.

“Your funding is based on what medals you’re going to win – if you don’t win those medals you won’t get funded, and it’s really hard to come back.

“It’s really harsh world and I think if you make it, it’s fine, but there are lots of people who get dropped along the way who struggle to deal with that. Indeed, a lot of people who make it struggle to deal with it.

“People see you competing in a GB kit on the world stage and think ‘wow’, but most of it is really boring.

“You’re not constantly going out to parties or anything – you’re at home training, sleeping, fixing your blisters and ready to start again the next day.

“Everyone from the outside thinks you’ve got the really privileged life, and to an extent you have, you have something that hundreds of thousands of people will never get to do.

“But behind the glamour, there’s a really difficult part to it.”

Speaking at a forum for Not a Red Card, a campaign by financial services company Legal & General aimed at using sport as a means of tackling the stigma surrounding mental health, Grey-Thompson also commented on the increased exposure and access of social media, which comes with its own pressures, not just in the sporting world.

“In sport, there’s much more public access because social media has changed,” she added. “You always had people who thought they might be experts.

“I’ve had races when I’ve done badly when people have stopped me in the street after and gone ‘I wouldn’t have done that, God, you were so stupid, I would have done this’.

“That never really affected me too much because I thought of it people caring about my performance, even if I’d disappointed them.

“Social media has made it so much more open. You get criticised for what you do, what you say, what you do and how you perform.

“Some of the worst things said to me on social media don’t really affect me – it’s more about the subtle things.”

The summit, held at Twickenham Stadium on Thursday, saw athletes including Grey-Thompson, Olympic gold medal-winning hockey star Helen Richardson-Walsh and swimmer Michael Jamieson, who won silver at London 2012, join discussion panels with business people to share their experiences in dealing with mental health problems.

Keynote speeches, including from former Number 10 director of communications Alistair Campbell, also took place at the Home of Rugby.

Nigel Wilson, CEO of Legal and General, said: “We think of it as an iceberg – a little bit of it is visible to us but there’s a huge amount below the surface. As a society, we’ve got to raise it up and melt it.

“It’s the most difficult part of my job dealing with mental health issues across the group because there’s so few solutions.

“It is just so difficult to come up with the right solutions in the mental health area.”

Find out more at www.legalandgeneral.com/notaredcard or by searching #notaredcard