AT THE Olympics and Paralympics everything an athlete encounters is a performance issue – from the lumpy pillow stopping you sleeping well to a personality clash with the official team coach. How well athletes deal with these stresses when the pressure is on is what can separate the good from the great. And when you hit Olympic standards and approach a competition that only happens every four years, where it seems the whole world is watching, there are many more additional stresses to deal with.
One piece of research counted 238 individual pressures that need to be considered for competitors at an Olympic Games. Many of these can be planned for as they are part and parcel of being an elite athlete, yet Rio brings with it a number of unique challenges.
Here we look at five of those unexpected pressures and how sports psychologists have been supporting athletes to develop plans and coping strategies to build up their resilience to them. Certain strategies can also help all of us in our own competitions to prepare for the unexpected.