The Paris 2024 Olympics are beginning, and many athletes, to fulfill their dreams, will find themselves in the position of having to deliver a performance that defines their sporting life. The Olympic Games are the most important competition for every athlete; it is the event that can change their sports career, much more than a world championship. This holds true for those who have already won and wish to repeat their success, as well as for those athletes who are starring for the first time. Despite doping scandals, winning an Olympic medal continues to be every athlete’s dream, and for those with a realistic chance of achieving it, it represents everything they dared not think about, for fear that the desire might not come true.
What athletes must manage these days is their panic, oscillating between peaks of confidence in their abilities, bolstered by their past sports results, and moments of pure terror where the worst-case scenarios seem to take over. These emotions are less common among athletes who are not podium contenders, those aiming for a respectable finish, who are already happy to be competing in the world’s greatest sporting event.
For others, the medal hopefuls, those in the top positions of the world rankings, the waiting can be exhausting. They must know how to manage this waiting period, accepting this underlying emotional noise in all its nuances, reducing destructive emotions with constructive states of mind and thoughts. The race with themselves doesn’t begin at the ready-set-go; it has already started these days. Because the before determines the after; how they handle the days immediately preceding the event determines how they will perform on the day of the competition.
often ask athletes about the mental part of their final warm-up just before the race. For many, it consists of mentally rehearsing the event they are about to face or using chosen words to reach an optimal level of emotional activation. This mental work creates a mix of feelings, physical sensations, and thoughts that allow them to focus solely on their performance. In this way, they arrive at the moments just before the start, within their bubble, completely absorbed in what they are about to do. Then they start, and everything happens, or should happen, seemingly spontaneously.
Of course, it’s not like that. Every sport requires a balance between aggressiveness and competitiveness and the ability to stay on task without becoming impulsive. It’s like in Formula 1; you need to dare and attack without falling into the trap of doing so at all costs, regardless of the situation.
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