I find brilliant the proposal which you can read below. Sports culture is also achieved with these initiatives that combine professionalism and passion, those of Valerio Piccioni, and that it would require a better diffusion beyond the moment in which they are presented. It’s not a current event, but the topics covered will be forever. The Miguel’s competition, launched “Miguel tells Rio”, continuing the ongoing collaboration between this event and the Rome schools. “This is a manifesto in which are hidden 50 stories of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” explains Valerio Piccioni, Gazzetta dello Sport journalist and creator of the race- not necessarily winning or stories of medalists – for example there is the first Kosovo medal or the favela that was cleared for the construction of the Olympic Park. Behind QR codes ,set among the images of the Games, there are many Olympic and Paralympic stories. They can be photographed and then dumped to see the stories. Miguel tells 50 stories of sports and life gathered during the 31ST Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro “
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Ai vostri posti
Il mondo, lo sport, le Olimpiadi. I campioni che hanno vinto e quelli che non ce l’hanno fatta
Valerio Piccioni, Gianni Bondini, Ivano Maiorella e Nicola Sbetti (Eds.)
Edizioni BookLab, 178 pagine a colori
The book can be requested at:
Ufficio stampa e comunicazione UISP, email: uisp@uisp.it tel.+ 39 06 43984305.
This book, published in 2016 Olympic year, contains biographies of about 50 champions of sport and humanity, They played a role in the sport history while not necessarily won the gold medal.
The Olympic year is an opportunity to re-read the Games through the lens of the social value of sport. Starting with the stories of champions who have won despite not having arrived first, women who made off in a historically male chauvinist, athletes and world symbol of the long March of rights, equal opportunities, anti-racism. “Here are the Pipers of this story: they are often the winners is inevitable but can sometimes also be the losers – writes in the opening of the book Valerio Piccioni, journalist – the readers have not to expect a single story, capable of saying anything at all. Rather, stories to discover or rediscover, that deserve to be told, helping us to understand the world.” The index of the book is very spread and divided into chapters evoking suggestions that they do read in one breath.
“War and peace” where we talk among more of the rivalry and friendship that did not like Hitler between American Owens and German Long, or the history of Zatopek between victories and Russian tanks, or that one of Black September and the Munich Olympics. “Losers or winners?” the Dorando Pietri’s story and the Games lost, to Ron Clarke, the Kenyan champion who was told he could never run. “Olympic challenges teachers of history” whenTito beats Stalin on a soccer field in 1952, the Hungarian war and water polo, the baseball match United States of America-Cuba at Olympic Games Atlanta.
These 13 chapters show how history, sport, society and culture constitute together an inseparable relationship. It’s a book for everyone, for those who love sports and want to understand its deeper meaning, beyond the current trends, but it is also a book for those who think that sport is a simple exercise, without understanding the value for the development of the human being. Finally, it’s a book where it’s showed that sport is an expression of the culture in which we are immersed and sometimes expressed, as in all forms of abuse which we know, the worst values of our society. For these reasons, sport needs to be defended, to spread its constructive role in the development of the culture where we live. “Ai vostri posti” provides precisely this contribution and the only regret is that it has not been found a wider diffusion as it deserves.
The psychological skills the athletes must show in competition and in training are often difficult to list, because the risk is to do a very long and too generic list. Nevertheless, today I would like to try to identify, from my point of view, the skills that can represent milestones in the athletes’ sport careers.
- Self-control – it means knowing what are the behaviors to put in place to address the competition requests. The self-control requires respect for opponents; at the same time the athletes must be the leader of themselves, to overcome the difficulties posed by the races and opponents with the aim of providing the best performance.
- Readiness for action – the athletes are persons oriented to act and therefore they must be ready to kick a ball, pulling a shot, to run in a precise rhythm, to anticipate opponents, to start rather than conclude effectively a race and so on. Readiness goes with high levels of situational awareness: the athletes have to know what to do at any given time and do it at their best.
- Toughness and resiliency – I did not completely understand the distinction between these two psychological concepts, but I believe the athletes should continue to do the best even when they are tired, when all seems lost, during the decisive moments, at the end of the race, when they feel confused but know they have prepared an action plan for those moments.
- Attention – Robert Nideffer said the attention is the only important thing in the decisive moments. I agree and, that is the reason, I consider it as the ability allowing to lead the mental commitment. The athletes have to know what to look for, knowing when to use a broad attentional style oriented toward the environment rather than a narrow attentional style, more focused on very few external factors. Without proper attention they cannot understand what is going to happen and to move in advance.
- Optimism – The explanation of the performance results is an important factor, because it determines the expectation in relation to the future competitions. Humans are often engaged to explain their positive and negative results. It is therefore essential, the athletes develop an optimistic perception of their performances, because if they explain the positive results in term of luck or lack of competent opponents is unlikely they improve and gain a winning mind.
The events of recent weeks have driven us to be afraid to go to the public events or take a trip to London but the response should not be to close inside home but to do as in Manchester, 50,000 people together again to say that we trust and believe in freedom. We live in a present dilated at global dimension. Whatever happens somewhere in the world we immediately know, from bombs in Kabul, the attack in London until the panic of the crowd in Turin. They are different stories but linked by the information; we are constantly overwhelmed in real time. This continuous whirl of news has made smaller the world in our perception, because this instant sharing reduces geographical distances and stimulates us to feel in danger. The attacks want to achieve this goal by hitting our lifestyle, the freedom to walk freely in the streets, going to concerts, having fun, going to a game or see it in a square. The speed of information is an additional weapon used by the terrorists, as we know all the while after that happened, without being prepared to mitigate the backlash on our minds. To not feel crushed by the weight of these news and insecurity that can generate, we must then learn to reassure ourselves and who lives with us. In fact, there is no ready way to respond to these tragedies and fears that we seek, we have to keep doing what we’ve always done. Sports and music can help, because they are passion shared and meet in deep the desire to be together. They represent, therefore, an antidote to the unspoken tension lived under skin, which accumulates every day if not melted in the practice of interests that unite, feeling shared emotions and which enrich our existence. We must continue to spread the culture in all its forms from sports to music and art. As individuals we are the keepers of our culture, that we must be able to demonstrate freely, don’t forget it when we’ll we have the doubt to go to a game, to participate in a race or allow our sons to go to a concert.
At any age you can choose to change
You can always start over
as long as you are willing to make mistakes.
10 questions to understand the psychological component of sports.
- Understand the mental side of warm-up.
- The way to be in the pre-race or pre-workout optimal condition.
- The way to use the mental rehearsal before an exercise.
- The mental aspects of physical preparation.
- Be aware the athlete is doing the training just to execute the coach’s instruction.
- Recognize the athelete’s mental intensity in training and competition.
- To know the attentional demands of the various sports.
- Be able to react immediately to an error in a constructive way.
- Use the breaks in training and competition to retrieve not only physically but also mentally.
- Optimize the situational awareness.
The optimist accepts stressful events
learning something from these situations
while
the pessimist does not address situations that may be a source of stress
and shows a reduced awareness of the problems
The phenomenon related to adult and aged people’s practice is more and more increasing, specially in long distance running, but also in the various track disciplines. A study was carried out on track and field masters, taking part at the Italian Master Championships with the aim of studying motivation, using the self-determination theory, pointing out relations between the psychological dimensions, the different age categories and the characteristics of sport career. Another goal was aimed at identifying a series of information on their sport career, such as the “sport life” and the kind of activity during their practice.
The data about the characteristics of the practice are the following:
- 55% has been track and field young athlete, while the 40% has practiced athletics
- 47% started this sport less than two years ago, 27,5% since 2/3 years and 15% since more that 15 years
- 82,5% practice all the year, while 12,5% only sometimes
- 46,3% train 3/4 times per week, while 28,8% more often
- 51,3% train alone, while 35,3% in group and 7,5% both
- 80% train in a track field
- 42,5% is without a coach, while 51,3% with a coach
- 60% don’t train in also in the gym, while 35% in a gym too
(Carbonaro, Cei, Ruscello and Quagliarotti, Atletica Studi, 2016, 3/4, 28-40)
EXCELLENCE
10% Talent & 90% Perspiration
Just to remind those who have forgotten for a moment
