Thrill of victory, agony of defeat

Said, known for his adeptness on the rings and the vault, is no stranger to success, having previously won gold on the rings at the European Championships, three years ago.

But last Sunday, the 26-year-old, who had hopes of bringing glory to his country, bade a premature farewell to the Games after he broke his left leg in a horrendous incident while competing in the vault competition.

“It is very difficult for the team,” French team leader Corrine Moustard-Callon was quoted as saying in a Mail Online News article, last Sunday. “He came to win a medal and gave everything 200 per cent.” Said, it was reported, had yearned to represent his country in gymnastics ever since he was a young boy. He has now vowed to return to the Olympics in Tokyo 2020.

That same day, Marisa Dick, the first Trinidad and Tobago gymnast to compete in an Olympic Games, gave a generally commendable performance at the Games but failed to advance to the finals in Thursday’s competition after a dismal showing on the uneven bars.

Dick, who arrived at the prestigious Games on a barrage of controversy, also had promised to win gold at the event but fell terribly short of her expectations.

For athletes, including Said and TT competitors Dick; judo fighter Christopher George veteran swimmer George Bovell; shot putter Cleopatra Borel; sprinter Richard Thompson; and cyclist Njisane Phillip, all of whom have already experienced disappointment at some level in the Olympics, the pressure to perform can be good or it can be an evil, says sports psychologist Donald La Guerre.

“Pressure comes in the form of high expectations from: family, media (especially social media); fans; country; and critics (haters).

The individuals with the high expectation fail to understand that athletes need to peak at specific times,” he said in an interview on Thursday.

La Guerre added the pressure to succeed was greater for athletes like TT’s Keshorn Walcott, who is seeking to retain his supremacy in the javelin throw.

He said Walcott and other athletes who have won gold medals will need to remain extremely focussed on their short, medium and long term goals.

“This needs to happen regardless of outside pressures and expectations,” said La Guerre.

“Great athletes take this pressure along with anything negative and channel it into successful performances.

It is almost as if they are saying to everyone, ‘Take that!’ What happens here is that the pressure fuels them to do even better than before.” On the other hand, he noted the pressure can be overwhelming for others and negatively impact performances.

La Guerre is the managing director of the privately-owned DLG Sports Psychology, which was established in 2009.

A trained mental conditioning coach, who has worked with a number of national senior and junior athletes, La Guerre played a crucial role in the training of the West Indies Women’s Cricket team, which won the T20 World Cup in India, earlier this year.

He holds a graduate degree in sports psychology from Georgia Southern University, US.

La Guerre said sporting enthusiasts, average citizens and up and coming sportsmen and women need to understand that elite athletes’ needs vary so they would have to mentally prepare for competition differently.

He said the main objective from a cognitive perspective was to ensure that strengths were executed as much as possible while minimising areas for improvement.

“In other words, having a mental game plan is of paramount importance especially on the world’s biggest stage,” La Guerre said.

The psychologist used the sport of swimming as an example.

“When we look at individual sports such as swimming, we can easily see how important it is for swimmers to have a rhythm,” he said.

“These athletes often have an in-depth understanding of what exactly contributes to them finding that rhythm. Music is very common so some may have a favourite song that they repeat in their minds prior to and during events.” La Guerre said it also was common to see elite athletes display a pre-competition or “during competition” routine, some of which can be extreme but generally tend to have a positive impact on competitors.

“These help athletes repeat successful performances and the goal is to do this as much as possible. Some may make the sign of the cross before a race.

Others may take a couple practice swings in golf,” he said.

Another example may also be the number of times a ball is bounced before taking a free throw in basketball, La Guerre said.

“Some may call this a ritual but in the end these are all examples of strategies that these athletes believe contribute to their optimal level,” he said. La Guerre said strength was one of the most important ingredients for elite athletes.

“Strengths come in the form of technique, skill, endurance, power, speed and ability to focus.

These are all things that elite athletes have direct control over,” he said.

He said strengths may also include characteristics for which the athletes are known: a gift or skill which sets them apart; something that they can do with not much effort or natural talent.

“Usually each athlete at this level is aware of his/her strengths and they bank on them during national and international events,” La Guerre said.

La Guerre said although these strengths would have landed endorsements and lucrative sponsorship deals for some he noted, however, that these same strengths are sometimes forgotten among this group.

La Guerre said although it was ideal for them to focus on the “controllables,” this was not always the case. “Sometimes, athletes shift their attention to the things that they cannot control.

For instance they may worry about other athletes, the media, ambience, facilities or poor empire/referee decisions.” When this occurs, he said, they are then in a position where less focus is being directed to their strengths and performances tend to diminish.

“It is vital for elite athletes or any athlete for that matter to be aware of the causes of this switch in focus. I am deliberately saying a switch in focus and not distraction because it is a literal shift of attention. As they become aware of this switch in focus, their mental game plan would allow for ways to refocus.” La Guerre said some athletes do this well by recovering from a poor start or bouncing back from a mistake.

“They remind themselves that they have trained hard for this, how good they are, exactly where their focus needs to be (strengths) and how much they want to win,” he said.

According to La Guerre, family members as well as the public had a vital role to play in helping athletes with their preparation. “This can have a positive impact on athletes,” he said, adding that a large number of athletes play sports as a passion as well as for love of country.

Observing that this sometimes comes with little or no tangible incentives, La Guerre said athletes often read posts online, Whatsapp messages and enjoy feeling acknowledged and respected.

He observed, “After the West Indies women, men and under 19s became the World Twenty20 champions many of them spoke to this in their interviews. The entire West Indies rallied around them.

Support from friends, family and the entire Caribbean region helped them create history.”