Sport psychology consultants’ perceptions of their challenges at the London 2012 Olympic Games

TY - ABST

T1 - Sport psychology consultants’ perceptions of their challenges at the London 2012 Olympic Games

AU - Elsborg, Peter

AU - Diment, Gregory

AU - Elbe, Anne-Marie

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - The aim of the study was to explore the challenges sport psychology consultants perceived at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 sport psychology consultants up to six weeks after the London Games. The interviews were transcribed and inductively content analyzed. The results show that consultants 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 your role) and Challenges during the Olympics (e.g. dealing with the media). Furthermore, four different Sport psychology consultant roles during the Olympics could be defined. On the one hand, the reported challenges validate and cohere with the challenge descriptions in the literature. On the other hand, the data identifies individual contextual differences between the consultants’ perceptions and illustrates factors that influence which challenges consultants perceive to be important.

AB - The aim of the study was to explore the challenges sport psychology consultants perceived at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 sport psychology consultants up to six weeks after the London Games. The interviews were transcribed and inductively content analyzed. The results show that consultants 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 your role) and Challenges during the Olympics (e.g. dealing with the media). Furthermore, four different Sport psychology consultant roles during the Olympics could be defined. On the one hand, the reported challenges validate and cohere with the challenge descriptions in the literature. On the other hand, the data identifies individual contextual differences between the consultants’ perceptions and illustrates factors that influence which challenges consultants perceive to be important.

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - International Congress of Applied Psychology

Y2 - 8 July 2014 through 13 July 2014

ER -