Top Olympic tips for mental resilience to enhance success

Team GB’s lead psychologist Jess Thom reveals her advice to athletes to boost focus and performance

• Team GB’s psychologist on nerves, negativity and self-doubt
• Paris 2024 Olympics – live updates

Athletes are encouraged to recognise that they do not have control over their feelings but also that their feelings need not dictate their actions. The approach applies as much to enhancing training as to event-day performance. An athlete might plan, say, how they want to respond when their alarm goes off at 5am and their overriding feeling is: “I can’t be bothered today.” Similarly, they learn to expect to be nervous before a big event and to interpret the feeling as being revved up and ready rather than a sign of impending doom.