I was given this article by a former coach in preparation for the Olympic Swimming Trials that I had coming up. I remember reading it for the first time and it helped me deal with the pressure of performing on race day. In many sports, including swimming, you get one chance to perform the perfect race, especially at an event such as the Olympic Games. Anyway, check out the article, I hope you find it as useful as I did!

I was very surprised to learn that only 17% of athletes actually perform their best at the Olympic Games. Given that most athletes prepare for this competition with nothing short of a missionary zeal, one would expect there to be a higher percentage of personal bests achieved. What is it that is leaving the majority of athletes disappointed?

Training and competing are two fundamentally different things. I have had many teammates along my swimming journey who were physically talented monsters in training, but meek in competition. When the pressure was on, they would barely equal or surpass what they were regularly capable of doing in practice. This seemed to be mysterious and frustrating for them and their coaches, leading some of the most physically talented athletes to drop out of the sport.

This past weekend was my first competitive outing since competing continually for the latter half of last year up until November. Once again I was reminded of just how important it is for an athlete to compete regularly. I opted to compete in many off events, purposely competing with races in quick succession of each other. The simple truth is that best practice for competing is in itself, competing. The mental approach requires as much diligence and training as the physical body. The renowned swimming coach Gennadi Touretski, coach of the Russian Sprint Czar Alex Popov, multiple Olympic gold medallist and one of the most formidable competitors the sport has ever seen, is known to have said that it takes seven years to learn how to swim, another seven to learn how to train, and a further seven more years to learn how to race. It was famously rumoured that he would have his swimmer, Popov, swim one hundred 100m races in all sorts of competitions in a year. This incredible effort paid off, because when the pressure was on in the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics, Popov was unbeatable in both the 50m and 100m freestyle each time.

The more important the competition the greater the pressure. All pressure is really self-imposed, usually manifesting as varying degrees of nervousness which in turn affects us each in our own unique way. Looking back now, the greatest of all competitions, the Olympics, (and I have been to four), is an interesting psychological experiment. The first few days before the competition begins, the Olympic Village is a collection of the most nervous, stressed out people on the planet. It’s is very easy to get wrapped up. We firstly, as people, who after walking around 24/7 in sporting apparel at the epicentre of everything sport begin to define ourselves as athletes. Then once the medals begin to be awarded, a funny thing begins to happen subtly, the natural progression of this line of thought is to believe that since we are all athletes, the greater athletes must therefore be the greater people. This mass thought process stokes the nervous fervour into a fever pitch. Once this happens it is very easy to get overwhelmed and led to believe wholeheartedly that in a just a few days winning a medal can be the one and only shot in a lifetime to justify an existence. Imagine that pressure! To be aware of it, is the first step to being free from it.

In competition the pressure finds the cracks, and through years of frequent high level competition, Popov had sealed up all of his. I remember watching his races as a boy and being so impressed with his demeanour and body language; exhibiting a cool, calm, fighting confidence that I would try to emulate in my age group swimming competitions. It is often possible to predict with great accuracy who will perform well and who will choke, just by an athlete’s body language. I saw the 2011 100m track Finals at the Hasely Crawford National Stadium, which would decide the national team for the 2011 World Championships. There almost all of the finalists walked out nervously looking as if they were are trying to hide inside themselves, as if the pressure was squeezing them into as small a shape as possible. This was sharply contrasted by Richard Thompson, who wore the aforementioned body language of cool, calm, proud fighting confidence exemplified by Popov. I knew he would win, and he did, ever so gracefully and casually.

In practice it is possible to simulate and train for the race, but it is nearly impossible to simulate and prepare for the pressure and the nerves that come with it. When we desire a result, this very act of wanting, brings the fear of not attaining the result. Wants and fears always go together and under pressure in the crucible of competition they are smelted into a mixture that is desperation. This desperation most commonly manifests itself in us by making us force things.

According to Lao Tzu, the great Chinese and Taoist philosopher, one of the tenets of the philosophy of Taoism and good living is to “always do but never force”. This has proven true time and time again especially when applied to sport. In swimming for example, I have had to painfully learn the hard way that the combination of my wants and fears, which creates desperation, results in a tendency for me to force things. This forcing leads to cavitation, because without the slight counter intuitive pause in between strokes to glide forward through the water, one ends up digging and churning the same water over and over, resulting in a massive wastage of energy for much less forward motion. I imagine it is similar in track where one requires composure to attain a long stride length. For those who aren’t familiar with track or swimming, this notion is like the harmonic relationship in music, in which it is the various frequency of sounds and the interval between them that creates a melody. Without the silent, empty time between the notes there would just be noise. A good performance is patiently played like a beautiful melody, each part in its own time, for its own sake, while a desperate performance is like forcing all the notes out at once in order to get to the end of the song as quickly as possible. For Olympians who have spent tens of thousands of hours practicing, competition should be about relaxation and execution. As if drawing a bow, then aiming and firing without thinking “Now!” Just let it flow, don’t force it.

Champions seems to be the ones who are able to best shrug off the pressure and thus avoid the desperation that it brings. Think of the 100m track London final, everyone was so serious except for Bolt. For Bolt it seemed as if the pressure was just rolling off him like water on a duck’s back, while it was evident that many of the other finalists were heavily burdened with it. He came out the blocks big, loose, light and fast, the rest is history.

We must not forget that we are all in the human race, this ultimate race of our individual lives. A big part of life is dealing with pressure, wants and fears. One of the reasons that sport is vicariously enjoyed by billions of spectators is because it provides a stage on which this drama of life can be played out in front of us for all to see and relate to. In our own races and songs, let us not succumb to the pressure or our wants and fears and become desperate, forcing out our notes with the intention of hurriedly reaching the end of our song, but rather play each note for its own sake and enjoyment, letting the music flow like water down the path of least resistance with the energy of the current behind it.

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