Olympic Games Psychology: How Athletes Perform Under Pressure

Taking part in the Olympic Games is an exceptional accomplishment, bringing pressures and demands unlike those found elsewhere.

Whether an athlete is striving for victory in the breaststroke or driving towards modern pentathlon gold, psychology will be central to whether they succeed or fall short in Paris this summer.

Recent Olympic Games have shown the psychological impact that performing at elite level can place on athletes.

US gymnast Simone Biles pulled out of five events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to safeguard her mental health, while 23-time gold medallist Michael Phelps has spoken about the mental crash he experiences after taking part in the Games.

With a medal potentially lost through even the slightest mistake, how can athletes apply psychological principles to control their thinking and deliver under pressure?

Resilience

Being able to bounce back after setbacks, including an underwhelming performance or an injury, is essential.

Mental processes and behaviours, including emotional regulation - identifying and managing feelings such as anxiety - enable Olympians to retain their concentration and resolve despite the worldwide attention of competing on the biggest stage in sport.

Rather than being a permanent quality, resilience is a changing process shaped by the interaction of personal characteristics, including personality and psychological skills, with an athlete's environment, such as their social support.

A UK study from 2012 examining resilience among Olympic champions found that several psychological factors - including a positive personality, motivation, confidence and focus, alongside a sense of social support - helped shield athletes against the potentially harmful stressors associated with Olympic competition.

In turn, these factors strengthened an athlete's resilience and made it more likely that they would perform at their highest level.

Social support ensures athletes need not feel they are facing everything alone. Access to strong networks of relatives, friends and coaches can give them added emotional strength and motivation.

Resilience enables Olympians to use their own skills and characteristics while protecting them from the adverse effects of the stressors that inevitably accompany Olympic competition. A rower, for instance, may have to address problems caused by changing weather conditions.

It helps them stay composed and adapt to those conditions, perhaps by altering their stroke technique.

Being present

Focusing on the present can prevent athletes from becoming overwhelmed by the importance of their event, distracted by disappointment over previous failures, or consumed by the pressure of major medal expectations.

Athletes may draw on a range of methods to remain in the current moment. Mindfulness meditation and breathing exercises can leave them feeling settled and concentrated.

They might also use performance visualisation to practise particular movements or routines mentally. Consider a basketball player picturing a free-throw attempt.

Likewise, many athletes use thoroughly practised pre-performance routines, which may provide a feeling of normality and control. A tennis player, for example, might bounce the ball a set number of times before serving.

Remaining present can lower athletes' anxiety, keep their attention on the task in hand and let them experience - and, hopefully, enjoy - the atmosphere fully.

Protecting their mental wellbeing

Failure can be crushing, and athletes may have complex relationships with success.

Some, for example, experience post-Olympic blues: often described as a feeling of emptiness, diminished self-worth and even depression after an Olympic Games, including when the athlete has won a medal.

Writing for The Telegraph in 2016, British cyclist Victoria Pendleton described the experience: "It's almost easier to come second because you have something to aim for when you finish. When you win, you suddenly feel lost".

Olympians may be champions, but they still need to prioritise basics such as sufficient sleep and time away to recover mentally. An Australian study carried out in 2020 highlighted the link between sustaining mental wellbeing and improved athletic performance.

To support this, Olympians will work closely with staff such as performance nutritionists, who will make sure they have a balanced diet that satisfies the physical demands of their event and helps protect both physical and mental health.

Throughout their training, they will also work with sport and exercise psychologists to prepare for the Olympics and handle difficulties when they arise.

Should an athlete begin to struggle with performance anxiety before the Games, they might use mindfulness or cognitive restructuring. These techniques help people recognise and alter negative patterns of thought.

Olympians and their support teams must look after both the individual and the athlete in order to safeguard wellbeing.

By protecting their wellbeing, they give themselves the strongest opportunity both to achieve their best performance at the Games and to avoid post-Olympic blues once they have ended.

Mike McGreary, Programme Lead and Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology, Keele University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.