What makes elite athletes thrive or dive under pressure?

Psychology is an increasingly important part of elite sport. Winning at the highest levels can depend as much on peak-fitness of the mind as the body. Film supported by ‪@DXCTechnology‬

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for top-level sports people it's not just skill and athleticism they count. So often, it's mind over matter. Psychology is now seen as increasingly vital to winning. In elite sport the difference between success and failure is often the finest of margins.

The annual boat race between Oxford and Cambridge universities is one of the oldest and most prestigious events in the sporting calendar. For the competitors, it's 20 minutes of pure pain but also pure pressure. How the rowers cope with that intense pressure can make the difference between glory and failure.

The Cambridge women's team have won the last two races and this woman has been one of the secrets of their success. Sports psychologist Helen Davis has worked on specific techniques to help the team at the most mentally testing moments in the race. As training for the 2019 race intensifies, just trying to keep up with teammates is mentally grueling.

Understanding what makes athletes cope or panic at those crucial moments is an ever-growing obsession in professional sport - it's the multi-billion dollar question that sports psychologists are constantly trying to answer. Dr Jamie Barker lectures at the world's leading sports science university Loughborough in Britain. In 2013 Jamie helped devise a cardiovascular test. It compared the physiological reactions of athletes who thrive in a high-pressure situation with those who flop. A group of aspiring professional cricketers were set a specific target. The cricketers were warned that their results would be made public and would decide who makes the team and who doesn't. Nearly half the players hit the test for six and scored the runs and most of them went into what psychologists call a challenge state. Over half the batsman found themselves on a stickier wicket and failed to make the runs they mostly entered the so-called threat state. Jamie employs a mental visualization technique that sports psychologists have used with a variety of professional teams. Athletes are asked a picture a set of scales - on one side are their demands, the obstacles to success. They're taught to tip the balance the other way towards their resources, the attributes they possess that can help them.

Sports psychology is sometimes criticized as a phony science but many major sports teams and personalities now use psychologists and there's a growing acceptance that this boosts performances. In sports, as in the world beyond, a mental edge can bring a winning one.

In elite sport the difference between winning and losing often hangs on the smallest of margins. As coaches, teams and athletes press ever harder in pursuit of victory, this series reveals the latest innovative approaches they hope will keep them ahead. From data to design, science to psychology, discover what it takes to find the winning edge.

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