Whatever you do, DO NOT think of a pink elephant…

I walked across a University campus last week following a sport psychology consultation with an elite athlete. As I walked, I reflected on how the session had gone and started thinking about some of the psychological skills we had been working on. This particular athlete was more inclined than others to be negative in his thinking. We had spent some time during that session focusing on the use of positive self-talk and the reframing and the countering some of his common examples of negative self-talk. The athlete had talked about the preparation for his race and explained that he worried about what might go wrong, that he may tire too early in the race, that he may false start, that he may fall behind his competitors, and that he was scared of disappointing his coach. We discussed the link between his thoughts and subsequent behaviours and started to counter some of his more irrational thoughts. For example, we talked about the number of times he had false started, which he admitted was none, and resolved that the concern had little value other than to create a negative state of mind and, more importantly perhaps, by focusing on false starts he was increasing the likelihood of them occurring.

As I reached my office, I saw a sign scribbled hastily on the side of a cardboard box propped up against a railing . . . “Wet paint – do not touch” it said. The child inside me took over from the sport psychologist; it took all my willpower not to touch the railing, just to check. Was the paint really wet? Until that point I had not been aware of any desire to walk over to a random railing and touch it. Where did that urge come from?

It made me think back to some other instances where I had noticed the ubiquitous use of the word NOT or DON’T when giving instructions. As part of a recent observation of a gymnast who was struggling with a ‘mental block’ on some of her moves, I noted that her coach told her: “don’t stand for too long”, and “don’t worry, you are not going to fall”. The effect on the gymnast was immediate and powerful. She paused before her move, looked at her feet, shuffled and paused again, and she looked frightened and concerned. In both of these examples the coach was effectively creating negative self-talk in the gymnast’s mind – she was thinking about standing for too long and was worrying about falling. It is possible that without the instructions the gymnast would have executed her move quickly without fear of falling. In swimming one of the habits that coaches detest is seeing their swimmers breathe on the first arm pull after a turn. I have heard many coaches bark at their swimmers: “don’t breathe out of your turn” and observed the swimmer nod dutifully and accordingly breathe on the very first stroke. The use these negatively framed statements is two-fold. On the one hand it primes the athlete to think negatively, to worry about making a mistake, and it does little to assist the athlete in identifying the correct desirable behaviour.

So, as good practice coaches should try to frame their coaching instructions in a positive manner; tell your athlete what you want them to rather than what you don’t want them to do. In the examples that I have come across, the gymnastics coach could have encouraged her athlete to “start your move as soon as your feet are in place”, and “you are going to be steady and stick it”, and the swimming coach could have encouraged “three strokes before you breathe after each turn!” Using these positively framed instructions as opposed to the negatively framed statements will start to encourage positive thinking and to reinforce the desired behaviours in athletes. And whatever you do, don’t think about the pink elephant.

The psychology behind women footballers’ remarkable resilience

By Helen Owton

On Saturday night, England played a phenomenal game to beat Germany for the bronze medal at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015. Members of the team played with confidence, but the odds were psychologically against them after suffering such a cruel defeat to Japan earlier in the week, never mind the fact that they had never beaten Germany before.

In psychological terms, resilience is a process that involves coping with challenges and experiences of significant adversity in different contexts. This evolves into particularly individual ways of viewing of the world.

The American Psychological Association defines resilience as:

The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress – such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors. It means ‘bouncing back’ from difficult experiences.

In a group context, adapting to unpleasant experiences (for example, losing a game from an own goal in the dying minutes) is central to performing well in a team.

With this in mind, let’s look at the resilience of the England players.

Fara Williams grew up on an estate in Battersea, had a difficult upbringing and was homeless for seven years from the age of 17, while playing for England.
Karen Carney came back from injury, depression and self-harm. Fran Kirby has spoken honestly about her struggle to come to terms with her mother’s death, her battle against depression and her fierce return to Reading, scoring 33 goals in her first season back.

Katie Chapman is a mother of two, Casey Stoney came out in 2014 and suffered homophobic abuse on social media. At 26, Claire Rafferty suffered three anterior cruciate ligament ruptures and also works as an analyst for Deutsche Bank. Each of these journeys is personal, but a combination of factors contribute to team resilience.

Many studies show that the primary factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family that offer encouragement and reassurance. There is no doubt that it is possible for this to be found in a sporting team environment.

Together the team showed perseverance and trust in the ability of individuals, but also in their team’s ability and in the ability of the group of coaches, physiotherapists and psychologists.

Overcoming a cruel defeat

It is part of sport for athletes to make mistakes, as Laura Bassett did in scoring the own goal at the end of the semi-final against Japan. But many argue that resilience is key to overcoming mistakes in sport. A player who is not resilient will tend to mull over the mistake and it will affect their performance. A resilient player will use of the mistake as an opportunity to learn.

Everyone appeared to be heartbroken after the cruel ending of the semi-final game against Japan, but the team rallied round Bassett to bolster her resilience.

After the game, coach Mark Sampson said: “It’s ok to cry”. Being permitted to experience strong emotions (as well as recognising when you may need to avoid experiencing them) is important in recovering from an upsetting experience.

It was evident from the start that captain Steph Houghton was going to play her part in picking up the team to play formidably against Germany. Laura Bassett reflected on how hard it will be to move on from her own-goal heartache, but she captured the nation again by opening up, facing this head on and getting back on the pitch.

Teaching athletes to acknowledge, review and strategise after a defeat allows them to manage the emotional response which comes with making mistakes. Often, the most successful are those who have failed the most and after 21 attempts to beat Germany, it was England’s moment to finally claim victory.

The Conversation

Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

British Athletes on Fire in Korea

So how well do you know your sport? Can you answer these three questions?

  1. What event is the second largest multisport Games in the world after the Olympics?
  2. At what event have 48% of all recent medallists at the Olympic Games, including Beth Tweddle, Jessica Ennis-Hill, and Michael Jamieson medalled at?
  3. What event is taking place in Gwangju, Korea between 3 and 14 July 2015?

If you don’t know the answer to these questions, then you may not be aware that the Summer Universiade, or the World University Games as it is more commonly known, is currently underway in Gwangju, Korea, and will run until the 14 July 2015. The World University Games is held every two years for student athletes and this year between 12,000 and 13,000 athletes from 141 countries are competing for medals in 21 different sports. Sixty-seven athletes from Great Britain and Northern Ireland have travelled to Korea to compete across 12 different sports to attempt to improve on the medal haul from the 2013 Games held in Kazan, Russia when Great Britain took home 1 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronzes.

Many of the events are already underway and by day five GB has already surpassed its success from two years ago and currently sits in ninth position in the medal table with 2 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze. Medals have already been won in the Artistic Gymnastics (Kelly-Jay Simm, Women’s Individual All-Around, GOLD), and in the Swimming (Jay Lelliot, Mens 400m Freestyle, GOLD, Men’s 800m Freestyle, SILVER; James Wilby, Men’s 100m Breaststroke, SILVER; Craig Benson, Men’s 100m Breaststroke, BRONZE). Kelly-Jay Simm is also in with a good chance of more medals as she competes today in the final of the vault, the uneven bars, and the floor exercise. Hopes are high for more medals in the pool as Craig Benson goes into the 200m Breaststroke later today (Tuesday 7 July) with the fastest qualifying time from the semi-finals. He is joined in that final by fellow Scot Calum Tait.

A positive start is likely to have filled Team GBR with confidence as more sports start over the coming days. Follow the medal successes of the team via the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and the Games websites.

Where have all the teenage tennis prodigies gone?

By Jessica Pinchbeck

Over the years tennis has seen many teenage stars grace the courts and defeat their more senior competitors. One of the youngest teenage tennis prodigies was Jennifer Capriati who turned professional and had attained top 10 status by the age of 14 in 1990. However following her successful teenage years of tennis Capriati experienced many issues away from the court and ended up taking a year out of the game in 1995. Following this she resumed her career and won three grand slam titles before retiring in 2005. Martina Hingis also reached great heights at a young age becoming the youngest ever player to win a match in a grand slam at 14 and at 15 the youngest player to ever win at Wimbledon in 1997. Injury forced her to retire at the age of 22. For both of these cases one must surely question the physiological and psychological implications of achieving excellence at such as young age. Monica Seles and of course Serena and Venus Williams also spring to mind when thinking of teenage tennis prodigies, all of whom specialised in tennis from a very young age. However it would appear that teenage prodigies are few and far between in the modern game and in Wimbledon this year 18 year old Belinda Bencic and 17 year old Ana Konjuh are the youngest top ranked players to watch.

This decrease in the number of teenage prodigies hitting the top world rankings is also replicated, possibly even more so, in the men’s game. In the past we have seen Boris Becker win Wimbledon at the age of 17 in 1985 and Michael Chang taking the title at Roland Garros aged 17 in 1989, with other teenage stars such as Bjorn Borg and Rafael Nadal winning Grand Slams under the age of 20. However top ranked male tennis players under the age of 20 are becoming rarer in the modern era and this year Borna Coric aged 18, is currently ranked at 40 but failed to take his Wimbledon journey any further after losing to Andreas Seppi in the second round.

So why is this the case?

The age at which children should ‘specialise’ in one sport is always a discussion point and early specialisation has frequently been fuelled by Eriscsson’s 10,000 hour rule with early specialisation in one sport being reported as the only way to accrue this amount of practice and achieve expertise. With the majority of research on 10,000 hours conducted outside of the sports domain Ericsson’s theory has received some criticism within sports research with the majority of studies concluding that early specialisation is not an essential part of elite athlete development. Instead sports can be classified as either early specialisation or late specialisation sports which is dictated by the age at which peak performance is typically attained. Those sports classified as early specialisation sports include diving, figure skating, and gymnastics where early sport-specific training around the age of 5 to 7 is traditionally seen as the route to achieving excellence. Late specialisation sports consist of all other sports including racket sports, where there is no advantage at specialising in just one sport at an early age.

Back in 1988 Carlson investigated the development of 10 elite tennis players in Sweden and remarkably found that non-experts engaged in more tennis during early adolescence than the expert group. The results showed that the non-experts specialized in tennis by age 11, while the experts did not specialize until age 14, concluding that ‘early life specialisation did not benefit the development of elite tennis players’. So is the current lack of teenage prodigies due to the combination of evidence and common sense prevailing and young tennis stars being encouraged to sample a range of sports and specialise in tennis at a later age?

Interestingly this shift at the top does not appear to be preventing early specialisation from occurring. A study of 519 US Tennis Association junior tennis players found that 70% began specializing at an average age of 10.4 years old. There are also reports in the media of young child prodigies such as Jonah Ziff who appeared in national papers aged 2, 8 year old Diego Quispe-Kim and 9 year old Gabby Price. Of the young Wimbledon stars this year Bencic remembers playing tennis at the age of two with her her father (and coach) and at just 4 years old began training at the Melanie Molitor tennis school. Ana Konjuh started playing tennis at 5 years old and left home at the age of 10 to develop her tennis career. Borna Coric also started playing tennis at age 5. So in Wimbledon this year we have a few examples of early specialisers that have managed to break through and it will be interesting to see the path that their careers take as a result of such early specialisation. However the question remains as to what is happening to the rest of our young tennis stars?

Assessing the evidence there would appear to be two possible answers to this question. The first explanation attributes the lack of youngsters at the top of the sport to the increased speed and strength of the modern game whereby players, particularly in the men’s game, need to be physically mature to be able to cope with the demands of the game. In addition careers are now lengthier with improved training methods and advancing sports science knowledge keeping players injury free and physically and mentally match-fit for longer. The second conceivable answer is that intense specialisation at an early age is having a detrimental effect on the performance of young tennis players and may even be causing young tennis stars to burnout and dropout before they reach their peak performance age. Studies show that youth sport is becoming increasingly competitive which in turn has led to children taking part in extensive training, specialising in one sport at a young age, and playing large numbers of competitions at young ages. The result of this is an increasing occurrence of overuse injuries and burnout. John O’Sullivan author of ‘Changing the Game’ reveals in the US that a shocking 70% of children drop out of sport by the age of 13!

So whether it is due to the increasing demands of the current game creating a longer road to the top or the fact that tennis continues to encourage early specialisation at the risk of future champions losing motivation and burning out or withdrawing from the sport, either way it is highly unlikely that the pattern of teenage champions as young as Hingis, Becker and Capriati will repeat itself any time soon.

Shaking up gender relations in sport

By Helen Owton

Despite, England’s devastating loss against Japan (and I haven’t quite recovered from their cruel defeat), the nation’s eyes and attention now fall on the people who were partly responsible for the England’s Women’s Football Team success and impelled them into the semi-finals.

In the lead up to the Women’s FIFA World Cup, Mark Sampson was subjected to criticism (e.g. playing too defensively, selecting the right team) and he has had to prove himself during these few weeks. Not only does he have to prove his coaching, but he has had to be careful not to take all the credit for the women’s success. This isn’t just about football. Indeed Owen Jones argues that “men must embrace feminism, but not steal it” and Mark has given a lot of credit to the ‘England Heroes’ and his right hand person and England Assistant Coach, Marianne Spacey; it’s good to see women and men working dynamically and collaborating in their coaching roles behind the scenes to enable this success. Nonetheless, none of this changes the fact that there are so few women coaches, managers and officials in football, not only in the men’s game, but in the women’s game as well with just a global percentage of 7% of women coaching in football. Additionally, men hold 97% of European coaching licences and only 65 women hold a UEFA Pro Licence compared to 9,387 men.

Whilst more men are helping to progress the growth of the women’s football game and the viewing figures stormed to a peak audience of 2.4 million in the U.K. during the semi-final game between Japan and England, let’s not forget that the liberation of women is down to women and this is the same in football. The strides behind the scenes have been down to the struggle and sacrifice of women in football.

Helena Costa was the first female to coach a professional men’s football team, Clermont Foot but she resigned on the first day of her job. We don’t know the reason why she resigned but there has been some speculation and it might well involve a gendered argument particularly given the undercurrent of sexism that troubles football.

Women coaching men

In fact, there appears to be very few high profile examples of women coaching men in the whole of sport in the U.K.; Amelie Mauresmo coaching Andy Murray in tennis; Giselle Mather (Britain’s most prominent female full-time professional rugby coach at London Irish);Margot Wells coached husband, Allan Wells and is now an elite sprint and fitness coach working with members of the England Rugby Team; Mel Marshall was named Swimming Coaches Association Coach of the year in 2014 after Adam Peaty’s success – seven Commonwealth and European medals and two world records. They all seem to prove their critics wrong.

Recently, Murray has been angered by comments about his female coach but if he wins Wimbledon even more strides will be made for female coaches. Murray says that working with a female coach has meant that he’s been able to talk more openly and he argues in an article for L’equipe that ‘It’s a crying shame there aren’t more female coaches’. Tennis appears to be one of the more progressive sports for women with equal pay and mixed doubles, but prevailing gender norms are still reinforced. Once again, these progressions have been down to the struggle and sacrifice of women, particularly one woman in: Billie Jean King who has relentlessly fought for equality in professional tennis. These few examples of successful women coaches show that although they are in the minority, when they do get the chance they make a big impact.

It is evident that women are powerful influencers both as individuals, coaches, collaborators and enforcers of change in the world of sport. Sport is unquestionably missing out on something dynamic and influential if they do not have women involved and they have obviously started to realise this. Whilst initiatives are being created to include more women in coaching, women also need to be situated in more powerful positions (e.g. Executive committees) to challenge cultural attitudes that still need to change so that both women and men do not have to put up with sexism from the public, from organisations and sexist coverage that puts women off working in particular sporting fields and makes their job harder. The criticism women referees have received at this FIFA World Cup means that these initiatives would also improve the standard of refereeing at future International football tournaments as well, but we must remember that women are frequently subjected to harsh criticism when working in male-dominated roles.

We are taking the right steps forward to challenge this undercurrent flow of sexism but we still have a long way to go before women coach men in premiership leagues. We may be lost for words after England’s defeat in the semi-finals against Japan, but let’s keep the dialogue going about women’s position in football so that the next Women’s World Cup is not played on artificial turf.

Sport can help with your asthma if you learn how to listen to your body

By Helen Owton

It’s Wimbledon season again and many will be wondering whether champions Petra Kvitova and Novak Djokovic will repeat their 2014 winning performances; it’s worth remembering that both are asthmatic.

There are more than 230m people in the world with asthma and attacks result in a hospitalisation every seven minutes.

Sport can be a double-edged sword for people with asthma and even in the best of weather exercise can act as a stimulus, narrowing the airways and making it difficult to breathe. Around 80-90% of sufferers have exercise-induced asthma, which can trigger symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, tightness of the chest and breathlessness which can be caused by heat and water losses during exercise hyperventilation or endless streams of allergens such as pollution and pollen. If symptoms progress and become more severe, it can lead to a full-blown asthma attack where an overproduction of mucus further narrows the airways and limits oxygen intake.

So during May through to August, high pollen and pollution levels many are urged to reduce activity levels outdoors and keep their inhalers (normally the reliever) with them.

Yet, as Asthma UK points out, eight out of ten people with asthma aren’t doing enough exercise and as we know exercise has a number of positive effects including helping the heart, bones and digestive system to stay healthy, reducing stress and insomnia, and keeping unwanted weight off.

Mark Foster in 2008: has spoken about training with asthma.
Mark Foster/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

Other well-known sports asthmatics include swimmers Ian Thorpe, who reportedly took up sport as a way of dealing with his asthma, and Olympian Mark Foster, who has said “swimming can actually help because it teaches you breath control and how to make the most of your lung capacity … we are taught the best way to use all of our lungs not just a small part.” Foster said that in addition to taking a puff of his inhaler before every race, his coaches also kept a careful watch on his lung capacity and peak flow levels. Kvitova has said that she suffers worse symptoms in certain places and often arrives early before a tournament begins so her lungs can adjust.

Listening to your body

Sport can act as a distraction from asthma triggers and a way of ignoring the body. But asthma and sport are both central body experiences, that benefit from listening acutely to breathing patterns. Good breathing technique is fundamental to sport – and used alongside specific training designed to help professional sports people with their asthma, it can improve the experience of asthmatics.

Listen in.
Jogging by Shutterstock

“Deep listening” is an activity that requires careful, attunement to the nuanced and multiple layers of meaning enmeshed in sound. Asthma includes listening to sounds from the body: noisy heavy breathing, wheezing, coughing, panting, spluttering and sneezing. Some athletes develop acute attunement by identifying very subtle changes in their bodies in an attempt to anticipate and monitor their asthma and breathing.

Not only do athletes develop “deep listening” to their bodies, but “acute attentiveness to and active steadying of respiration, together with conscious efforts to relax and keep calm” is also required. With the benefit of experience and a developed attunement to their bodies’ responses, some sportspeople can learn what to expect during their sporting participation enabling them to feel more in control.

Therefore, many sportspeople can be more aware of their limitations when exercising, more in control of their breathing and know when not to push it to the max to avoid the onset of an asthmatic episode.

In research we carried out, some sportspeople said that, in general, they “did not listen to their bodies”, which often had later consequences such as a sudden onset of asthma after training or competing, along with feelings of panic and a reliance on an inhaler as a quick fix.

On the other hand, those who said that they “listened deeply” to their bodies, articulated an intelligent form of knowledge about their bodies which meant that while they couldn’t always engage in more activities, they did enjoy the activities in which they were able to participate and asthma seemed to be less disruptive to their daily lives.

Nonetheless, there are limits to the predictability of asthma and there are incidences where there can be an endless stream of potential allergens which takes conscientious efforts, precautionary measure and monitoring of bodily reactions.

The Conversation

Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Is the not-so beautiful men’s game putting people off women’s football?

By Helen Owton and Mark Doidge

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is getting to the business end of the tournament. On Friday and Saturday the quarter-final matches will kick off with an enticing prospect as Germany take on France. It conjures up memories of classic tussles in the men’s game, not least the infamous 1982 World Cup semi-final which saw German goalkeeper Harald Schumacher’s “assault” on Patrick Battiston. The trouble is, it may be just these sorts of comparisons which are holding back the growth of interest in the women’s game.

In the current tournament, although matches featuring France and the hosts Canada have been popular and partisan, other games have been sparsely supported. Whilst the global television coverage is touted to exceed one billion viewers, there have still been questions about the lack of spectators, and lack of media analysis of women’s football in general.

Crowd trouble.
GoToVan, CC BY

Women’s football might be one of the largest growing sports, but it has a long way to go. Consider first that while Germany received $35 million for their triumph in the 2014 men’s World Cup, the victors in Canada will win only $2 million. And women’s football simply doesn’t attract the same levels of spectatorship as the men’s game. There are plenty of reasons for that, of course. It takes time to build a following and fanbase; to create stars.

Potentially too, this lack of spectators may be due to the many myths around women’s football (that were beautifully satirised by the Norwegian team). Sexist attitudes still exist, as exemplified by the man in charge of promoting Brazilian football, Marco Aurelio Cunha, who said women are “getting more beautiful, putting on make-up”. Not should we forget that women’s football is not celebrated in all countries, as seen in the outrage of men in Saudi Arabia. But crucially, we fear that women’s football is suffering from the tarnished image of its successful but divisive sibling – the men’s game.

The Norway team keep a straight face.

Reputational damage

When people say, “but I don’t like football” they are usually talking about men’s football. This has become associated with two distinct characteristics: cynical professionalism and masculine fan culture. Elite level men’s football has become associated with unnecessary diving, over-the-top showboating celebrations, disrespecting officials and questionable actions outside of the game courtesy of bloated salaries and corporate sponsorships.

Too much?

Whilst it is clear that football fans are not one homogenous group, a dominant form of partisanship has developed that emphasises difference through hooliganism, obssessive fandom, sexism, homophobia, racism and other forms of prejudice. Now, the “beautiful game” has been tarnished by the recent FIFA corruption and arrests.

This culture of discrimination and violence has helped to send stadium attendance of men’s football into decline in many parts of Europe. This helps to create a rump of masculine fans who perceive that as they are the only ones still attending; they are the “authentic” fans.

Obsessive fandom and the culture of masculinity nurtures a sense of authority that aims to exclude others from voicing opinions on domestic and international games. Within the game, bad calls, needless diving, and “friendly banter” often dominate football talk. Within these conversations, subtle power dynamics are minimising the voice of the less masculine, less obsessive fan.

Head case. Pressure falls on FIFA.
Steffen Schmidt/EPA

Support network

While we are also falling into the trap of comparing women’s and men’s football, it is important to acknowledge that many of the viewing public will be doing likewise. It is important to create a space that challenges the dominant masculine culture of football, replete with prejudice, and which consequently seems to influence why people watch the game.

Men’s football is locked into a symbiotic relationship between partisan support and commercial victory. As the men’s game has grown as a professional and marketable industry, the spoils of victory are manifest. Global celebrity, commercial endorsements and fan adulation can catapult male footballers into millionaires. Meanwhile, the masculine fan culture prizes these victories as symbolic domination over rivals. Within this environment, a mantra of “win at all costs” ensues. Ultimately the male players who dive or challenge the referee are replicating the chants and demands of the fans in the stands.

In contrast, the crowds watching the women’s game are much more diverse, far less violent, less abusive and less prejudicial. The current Women’s World Cup shows that there can be a space within football that permits a different form of fandom and spectatorship. It’s just hard to get there through the shadow cast by the big brother.

Cynical challenge

Women’s football doesn’t just represent the game being played well, it also represents a challenge to male-only spaces that value a very limited way of being a man. If you don’t want to push these agendas forward then at least support the women and men who are willing to. As Gabby Logan argues, women are entitled to occupy any space, and that includes sport.

The Kuwait football team.
Doha Stadium Plus Qatar, CC BY

Women have shown that on and off the field, they can excel in football. The BBC has shown excellent coverage by Jacqui Oatley, supported by Sue Smith, Rachel Yankey, and Rachel Brown-Finnis, and highlighted that good analysis of football is not the preserve of men; even if men perplexedly continue to dominate in coaching and match commentary roles.

On the pitch, Germany, France and the US have shown that professional, organised and enthusiastic teams can compete in high quality games and deliver spectacular goals.

The challenge for the women’s game is that as it professionalises, it avoids the cynicism that pervades the men’s game. Respecting the referee, avoiding diving and focusing on the quality of the football on the pitch has to continue in order to maintain a challenge the dominant, and damaging image of (men’s) football. In this way we can remember to appreciate just how beautiful the game of football is.

The Conversation

Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University.
Mark Doidge is Senior Research Fellow in Sociology of Sport at University of Brighton.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Wimbledon is here – finally the summer of sport begins

By Simon Rea

This summer in the absence of an Olympics Games or major men’s football tournament sports fans are relying on events such as the women’s Football World Cup, the first European Games in Baku and the ICC women’s championships for entertainment.  From Monday 29th June this will be supplemented by two weeks of Wimbledon fever and a supply of tennis from lunchtime to bedtime.  The British tennis fans will be asking whether all our hopes of glory rest with Andy Murray or can any other British players have a good run in the tournament.

TennisBallNetSky

Image courtesy of PinkBlue at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Who will win?

The men’s singles and women’s singles could not be more different at the moment in terms of predictability.  If asked most people would answer that one of four, possibly five, men will win the men’s title while it seems that anyone could win the women’s title.

Women’s tournament

Serena Williams is once again the favourite for the women’s title and has been in spectacular form winning the last 3 major tournaments.  Most recently she won the French Open on her less favoured surface of clay but she hasn’t won Wimbledon since 2012.  Is she overdue to win or is her time at Wimbledon over?  If not Serena then two time winner and defending champion Petra Kvitova must be a favourite to succeed or Maria Sharapova, who has not won since 2004. These three stars of the game are joined in the top 5 by Simona Halep of Romania and Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, both of whom have appeared in Grand Slam finals. Personally, I think this may be the year for Wozniacki who has underperformed at Wimbledon but in the last two years her performances have steadily improved and she has gained the consistency needed for success.

Men’s tournament

Novak Djokovic is favourite for the men’s title just ahead of Andy Murray.  They recently shared an epic semi-final on clay at the French Open that Djokovic just won before he was beaten in the final by Stanislas Wawrinka.  We are living through probably the toughest era in men’s tennis where four men, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Murray, have been competing for the major titles.  There has often been a rivalry between two players but never have we had four of the best players ever to play the game competing in the same era.  This has meant that each man has had to raise their game and work on every weakness to remain competitive

I think that this year may be Andy Murray’s year to win a second title.  Firstly, he came very close to beating Djokovic after producing incredible tennis to drag himself back from two sets down. Djokovic is probably his closest rival at the moment and grass courts represent Murray’s favourite surface.  He recently replicated his form of 2013, when he previously won Wimbledon, at the Aegon Championships to win the tournament convincingly.  His form has been up and down over the last two years but he finally seems fit and strong after his back surgery towards the end of 2013.  Murray needs to ensure that he doesn’t lets his opponent back into the match during the second set after he has won the first.  If he can show his ruthless streak he would be very well placed to succeed this year.

Are there any other British players to watch out for?

Heather Watson and Laura Robson are now well established on the tennis circuit but Robson has only recently overcome a wrist injury that had kept her side-lined for 17 months.  Watson is joined in the top three British women by Naomi Broady and a relative newcomer, Johanna Konta.  Konta is Australian born and has never got beyond the first round at Wimbledon, however, she performed impressively at the pre-Wimbledon Aegon tournament in Eastbourne where she knocked out 2 top-20 players so she is definitely one to watch.

British men’s tennis has a new number two in the shape of Aljaz Bedene who is ranked 74 in the world and has held a British passport since March, having moved to Britain from Slovenia seven years ago to develop his tennis career.  It is the first time since the days of Henman and Rusedski that Britain has had two men in the world’s top 100. He has never won a grand slam match but is one to watch to see how he responds to the fervent support of the British public.

This summer may be quieter than others but hopefully along with the England women’s football team and England cricket teams there will be plenty of success to savour.

Preparing for Penalty Shootout Pressure at the Women’s World Cup

By Caroline Heaney

With the Women’s Football World Cup now into the knockout stages football fans will be preparing themselves for the prospect of a penalty shoot-out or two. Penalty shoot-outs are rarely missing from a major tournament and in fact the last Women’s World Cup was won by Japan on penalties.

England fans have a love-hate relationship with the penalty shoot-out. The excitement of a penalty shoot-out is unquestionable, but England teams are not renowned for their success in penalty shoot-outs. The men’s team have had several exits from major tournaments at the hands of a penalty shoot-out (e.g. 2006 World Cup, Euro 2012) and the women’s team exited the 2011 World Cup after losing to France on penalties in the quarter final stages. So what is it about the penalty shoot-out that makes it so intense?

The penalty shoot-out in a major tournament is probably one the most highly pressured situations in football; the stakes are high and the margins for error are small. Additionally, the personal accountability of individual players is probably higher than in any other situation in football, where normally responsibility is collectively shared. No-one wants to be the player responsible for their team exiting a major tournament, and history shows that unsuccessful penalty takers are often ‘scapegoated’ and ostracised by their national media. Interestingly it appears to be the penalty takers rather than the goal-keepers who tend to fall victim to this negative media attention, perhaps due to the expectations of a penalty shoot-out: penalty takers are expected to score and goal-keepers are expected not to stop them. Obviously when a goal-keeper makes a winning save they become a hero in the eyes of the media, but rarely are they subjected to the same media condemnation as a player who misses a penalty when they fail to save a penalty.

As a result of this teams often focus a significant amount of effort on preparing for the possibility of a penalty shoot-out, and the England women’s team have been reported to be doing just that. Psychology is certainly a significant factor in the penalty shoot-out. As a sport psychologist I like to watch a player prepare to take a penalty and predict whether they will be successful – there are certain psychological cues that are indicative of the outcome. Researchers have investigated these and have identified various factors that can influence the success of the penalty shoot-out. Some of these are explored in our penalty shoot-out game:

Penalty Shootout Game

Click here to play our penalty shoot-out game

As with most tasks, confidence is key. A player who is confident and believes that they will score is more likely to do so. There is no room for doubt in a penalty shoot-out. Confidence can be seen through visual cues such as eye contact. A player who lacks confidence may avoid making eye contact with the goal keeper. Good goal keepers recognise these signals and will draw strength from an opponent who won’t make eye contact. Additionally, a successful penalty taker will normally take their time and not rush. Rushing can be seen as a sign of panic, whereas someone who waits is giving themselves time to compose themselves before executing the skill, perhaps utilising psychological techniques like imagery and positive self-talk before taking the penalty kick. A player may use imagery to rehearse taking a successful penalty in their head before taking it and may use positive self-talk to enhance their confidence and focus.

Experience is obviously an important factor for penalty takers. Players who have previously successfully taken penalties and won penalty shoot-outs are more likely to be confident in their ability to take a successful penalty. The reverse of that however is that those who have had bad experiences are less likely to be confident, which goes some way to explaining the serial penalty shoot-out defeats seen in teams such as the England and Holland men’s teams – the culture of expecting to lose a penalty shoot-out perpetuates. Research by Jordet revealed  that success rates in penalty shoot-outs are considerably higher for teams who have won their last two penalty shoot-outs compared to those who have lost their last two shoot-outs (89% versus 57%), even if the team membership is changed. Interestingly ‘higher status’ players, whilst likely having more experience to draw on, are sometimes less successful in penalty shoot-out situations; perhaps because the pressure of expectation is far greater for them than for players of lower status.

This shows that the successful penalty taker is one who is highly confident and copes well with pressure. Next time you watch a penalty shoot-out, watch the players prepare and see if you can predict whether or not they will be successful.

 

Gains for women at European Games eclipsed by Azerbaijan’s appalling human rights record

By Helen Owton

With the Women’s Football World Cup kicking off this month and the recent Women in Sports week, the first European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan could have been another opportunity for women’s sporting success to be celebrated. But Azerbaijan’s atrocious record on human rights, and the ban on certain journalists from covering the event have meant any gains made by female athletes are close to meaningless. The billions spent on staging these games will be wasted – hardly anyone will be able to watch because of the tight media regulations; new rules make it possible for lawsuits to be brought against journalists whose work opposes national interest or “insults the honour of the state and the dignity of the Azerbaijan people”. So unlike the Women’s World Cup in Canada, in Baku few will see the great strides forward for women’s sport.

Out of sight, not out of action

So what have we missed? For a start, the European Games could have been a watershed moment for women’s boxing. Boxing, the archetypal male pursuit of controlled violence, has always been a tough arena for women. Often, they have to prove themselves over and above the levels of men to be accepted, not to mention facing multiple forms of discrimination and harassment. Women challenge existing gender norms by crossing gender boundaries and while the inclusion of women’s boxing at Baku and in the 2012 London Olympics (after and absence of 116 years) was a sign of progress, there is still much more work to be done. How many people have watched women’s boxing since the Olympics? Team GB star Nicola Adams became a household name in 2012 but coverage of her and other women boxers has been largely absent since then. London 2012 was called the “year of the woman”, but it increasingly seems to have been an exception rather than a norm.

Household name: Nicola Adams. Dennis M. Sabangan

Despite the lack of coverage, the GB women’s boxing squad is still fighting strong and achieving. Recent success came at the European Championships in Romania. The team returned with two medals. Natasha Jonas, who competed at London 2012 and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, won silver in the light-welterweight together with Stacey Copeland who also secured a silver medal in the welterweight final. Nicola Adams is a positive role model and an inspiring leader, so it is no surprise that she carried the flag for Team GB at the opening ceremony in Baku. She’s just won her opening round fight at Baku and is on course to make more boxing history. Nonetheless, she argues for more female role models given that many of her role models were men. This includes the need for more women in leadership roles in boxing. Meanwhile, today’s women boxers join the likes of other pioneering women boxers, Barbara Buttrick, Jane Couch, Cathy “The Bitch” Brown who could continue to inspire, but only if we hear about it.

Dodging human rights issues

And it’s very hard to inspire at an event so mired by controversy. While some argue that sport and politics should remain separate, sport does provide an opportunity to be an agent of social change and has been promoted as a force of good in the world. It would be naïve not to recognise how closely tied sport and politics are despite European Olympic Committee Chief Patrick Hickey insisting that sports remains divorced from politics. Sport presents us with an opportunity to demand change. In the early 1970s, ping-pong diplomacy was used to open up new diplomatic channels between the US and China. Nelson Mandela saw sport as a way to connect a nation; in 1995 he used the Rugby World Cup victory to symbolise the future unity of South Africa. But there are stories from the other side too. In 2008, the Beijing Olympics was a powerful example of human rights being ignored and the interconnections between Olympism, global sport and geopolitics. Similarly, the potential for transformation in Baku has been marginalised in favour of economic and corporate aims. Given this context and the bans on journalists entering the country, using the European Games as an opportunity for women to be seen as role models in sport could prove challenging and contentious. Nonetheless, these games do appear to have brought human rights issues into the limelight and the UN rights office is making attempts to get the Azerbaijan government to ensure freedom of expression assembly and association and fight for the release of jailed human rights defenders. If anything, the European Games in Baku are a reminder that the fight for women’s representation is a human rights issue. We cannot celebrate the gains made by women in male-dominated arenas as long as they take place in a country that does not support equality for all. The Conversation Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.