Sport Psychology Consultants’ Perceptions of Their Challenges at the London 2012 Olympic Games

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Elsborg ◽  
Gregory M. Diment ◽  
Anne-Marie Elbe

The objective of this study was to explore how sport psychology consultants perceive the challenges they face at the Olympic Games. Post-Olympics semistructured interviews with 11 experienced sport psychology consultants who worked at the London Games were conducted. The interviews were transcribed and inductively content analyzed. Trustworthiness was reached through credibility activities (i.e., member checking and peer debriefing). The participants perceived a number of challenges important to being successful at the Olympic Games. These challenges were divided into two general themes: Challenges Before the Olympics (e.g., negotiating one’s role) and Challenges During the Olympics (e.g., dealing with the media). The challenges the sport psychology consultants perceived as important validate and cohere with the challenge descriptions that exist in the literature. The findings extend the knowledge on sport psychology consultancy at the Olympic Games by showing individual contextual differences between the consultants’ perceptions and by identifying four SPC roles at the Olympic Games.

Author(s):  
Nenad Stojiljković ◽  
Nebojša Randjelović ◽  
Danijela Živković ◽  
Danica Piršl ◽  
Irena Stanišić

The main goal of this paper was to find out more about how and to what extent the local media reported on sporting events at the 2012 London Olympics and to determine the difference in reporting on male and female athletes in the local media. The subject of the research are newspaper articles about sports in electronic news editions, which influence the formation of the media image about athletes, and which can contribute to the affirmation or marginalization of women in sports. In this research for collecting data and information about athletes at the Olympic Games, three media sources were used: RTS, KURIR and POLITIKA. The data have been collected since the opening of the Olympic Games until their official closing ceremony and every day was thoroughly processed in all three media sources. The information included information on the gender of the author of the text, the number of photos in the text, the number of words in the text, the gender of the actors who are on the photos, the level of exposure of the actor's bodies in the photos, the emotions in the photos, the angle of the camera, individual and group display of athletes, active or passive on-site and out-of-court conditions. Generally speaking, the findings of this research in the media space of Serbia show that there is still an imbalance in the way men and women athletes are represented, and that in this respect, there is a need for certain changes in this issue.


Journalism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 1713-1729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Solves ◽  
Sebastián Sánchez ◽  
Inmaculada Rius

The Paralympic Games are one of the world’s most important multisport events, maybe second only to the Olympic Games. However, research conducted to date shows that the media do not devote as much space to them as would accordingly be expected. This article proposes, through a case study, a new way of approaching this hypothetical discrimination by comparing the attention that the London Paralympic Games received from the Spanish print press with the attention that other sports received (football, basketball, tennis, cycling, motor sports and other minority sports) while those Games were being held. The main finding of our study is that over the period analysed, the Spanish press devoted less space to the Paralympic Games than to any other sport.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Helene Joncheray ◽  
Fabrice Burlot ◽  
Nicolas Besombes ◽  
Sébastien Dalgalarrondo ◽  
Mathilde Desenfant

This article presents the performance factors identified by Olympic athletes and analyzes how they were prioritized and implemented during the 2012–2016 Olympiad. To address this issue, 28 semistructured interviews were conducted with French athletes who participated in the Olympic Games in 2016. The analysis shows that to achieve performance, only two factors were implemented by all the athletes: training and physical preparation. The other factors, namely, mental preparation, nutrition, and recovery care, were not implemented by all athletes. In addition, two main types of configurations have been identified: a minority of athletes (n = 4) for whom the choice of performance factors and their implementation are controlled by the coach and a majority (n = 24) who adopts secondary adjustments by relying on a parallel network.


1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Halliwell

Despite the fact that Olympic sailing is a psychologically demanding sport, few countries use the services of sport psychologists to mentally prepare their athletes for the rigors of international competition. At the 1988 Summer Olympic Games only Canada and France had sport psychologists working on site with the athletes during the Games. This article describes the educational, mental skills approach used to prepare the Canadian Olympic Sailing Team as well as the athlete and coach mental preparation programs. Components of the team’s Olympic Preparation Plan are outlined and the use of thorough planning and preparation to bolster the athletes’ feelings of readiness and confidence is discussed. The importance of providing athletes with a distraction-free environment during the Games is also discussed, along with a plan for accommodating the needs of their family members and the media.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Burdsey

The triumphal track and field performances of British distance runner, Mo Farah, at the London 2012 Olympic Games were lauded both for their athletic endeavor and for their perceived validation of the rhetoric of ethnic and cultural diversity and inclusion in which the Games were ensconced. By analyzing coverage of the athlete’s achievements in mainstream British newspapers, this article presents a more complicated and critical reading of the relationship between Britishness, multiculture, the politics of inclusion and the London Games. Employing a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, the article shows that Farah was constructed and represented by the media using narratives that are familiar, palatable and reassuring to the public; and that sustain hegemonic models of racialised nationhood and dominant ideologies around sport.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark James ◽  
Guy Osborn

AbstractIn this article, Mark James and Guy Osborn discuss how the relationships between the various members of the Olympic Movement are governed by the Olympic Charter and the legal framework within which an edition of the Olympic Games is organised. The legal status of the Charter and its interpretation by the Court of Arbitration for Sport are examined to identify who is subject to its terms and how challenges to its requirements can be made. Finally, by using the UK legislation that has been enacted to regulate advertising and trading at London 2012, the far-reaching and sometimes unexpected reach of Olympic Law is explored.


2018 ◽  
pp. 32-38
Author(s):  
Iryna Boiko ◽  
Lidiia Radchenko

Objective: to examine the trends in establishment and development of the volunteer movement in the system of Olympic sport and to justify the ways to involve various segments of the Ukrainian population in volunteering. Methods. Analysis of specialized literature, documentary materials, and Internet resources, historical and logical analysis, structural and functional analysis, surveying, methods of mathematical statistics. Results and conclusions. The study identified the main trends that are inherent in the Olympic volunteer movement, in particular the important role of the latest computer technologies; an expanding of the range of functional responsibilities and an increase in the total number of people wishing to assist in the organization of the Olympic Games; an increase in the percentage of foreigners among volunteers of the event; a decrease in the mean age of volunteers; a strengthening of the rules for selecting and expanding the content of training programs for Olympic volunteers with each Olympic cycle. The areas of volunteers' activities at the Olympic Games were examined, in the framework of which it is appropriate to carry out their training: interaction with IOC, NOC, ISF; coordination of arrivals and departures; participation in ceremonies; assistance to the organization of doping control; provision of protocol services to officials; technological support; assistance to the work of media-centers; coordination of transportation services; assistance to the accreditation service; volunteering at the Olympic events; linguistic services; catering services. The promising ways for the development of volunteer activity in Ukraine as a component of the development of the Olympic movement were justified and their effectiveness was determined: creation of the sections on volunteer activities on sports organizations' websites; development and implementation of special educational programs; development of measures aimed at attracting people to volunteering; creation of volunteer training centers; inclusion of the topic “Sports and Olympic volunteering" into educational programs of educational institutions; coverage of sports volunteering issues in textbooks on physical education for educational institutions; carrying out the studies on the issues of sports volunteering in educational institutions; promotion of the volunteer movement in the media; establishing links between sports and volunteer organizations; introduction of the practice of engaging sports volunteers to other areas of voluntary assistance. Keywords: volunteer, volunteer at the Olympic games, the Olympic sport.


2007 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Jørgensen

Per Jørgensen: Danish national identity and the media at the Olympic Games 1908-1960It has often been said that sport, and not least soccer, plays an important role in the construction of national identity. This is also the case in Denmark. This paper examines how the subject of Danish national consciousness, national feelings and nationalism, in the article collectively called »Danishness«, was culturally expressed through sport journalism in the period 1908-1960. The subject matter is the soccer- tournaments in those specific Olympic Games where Denmark took part. The discourse of the sport journalism in the paper »Politiken« has been hermeneutically analyzed. Research on how nationalism is expressed in one country requires international comparisons to allow theoretical generalizations. Therefore a minor study of the sport journalism of the Swedish newspaper »Dagens Nyheter« has been carried out regarding selected soccer-matches with Swedish participation in the Olympic Games in 1912, 1948 and 1952. Many of the characteristics of present day society referred to as »Danishness« are also explicit in the period 1908-1960 in the newspaper »Politiken«. A comparison between »Politiken« and »Dagens Nyheter« seems to show that the Danish discourse has distinctively Danish characteristics.


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