Mental Toughness is a key attribute of Positive Leadership™. Elite athletes show it in abundance. Congratulations to Amy Williams, Team GB's first individual Winter Olympics gold medallist for 30 years.
Read this article from the English Institute of Sport website, published just before competition started and then compare it with Williams' comments as described in The Times after she won gold. It is clear that she did learn the importance of mental toughness and used her preparation to excel under pressure. There are lessons in this for business leaders as they prepare for high performance in their world.
English Institute of Sport
'The Skeleton competition gets underway at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games later today (Thursday), with Team GB slider Amy Williams in particularly impressive form in yesterday’s final practice.
The 2009 World Championships silver medallist, who accessing a range of English Institute of Sport (EIS) support services as part of her British based training at Bath, finished second fastest on both the final two practice runs at the Whistler Sliding Centre, where she was runner up at a World Cup event last year.
Among the EIS support she has received, Williams has worked closely with EIS Sports Psychologist Deirdre Angella leading up the Vancouver Games.
“The preparation with Skeleton for Vancouver from an EIS psychology perspective started about two and a half years ago and we really planned backwards from the Winter Olympics to ensure the athletes were in the best possible position to deliver for these Games” she says.
“The British Skeleton Coaching and support team is well established and everyone’s expertise dovetails to provide the very best athlete preparation. One of the aspects for psychology was to focus on maintaining many of the effective features already in place. With individuals working to personalise what was necessary for them to maximise their strengths in order to deliver their best performances.”
This process included looking at areas of performance that can and can’t be controlled, whilst agreeing on procedures that the athlete will look to follow in the event of various scenarios so that they are prepared for whatever happens on the day of competition.
“For Amy some of the work she did was aimed at harnessing the excitement of competition so that she can effectively transfer training performance into competition performance” Angella adds.
“We looked at ensuring she follows all the day to day basics and normalises her routine as much as possible so that she finds herself in a position where when she gets on her sled she has a simple focus which just allows her to trust her ability, the work she has done and the thrill of sliding.”
The hard work seemed to be having the desired effect in the practice runs, with Williams commenting yesterday’. “I managed to enjoy it, and whenever I relax, enjoy it and have fun, it seems to work out. If I can enjoy the track I think the results will follow” she said.'
The Times
'Amy Williams gave Great Britain a gold medal shot in the arm on day eight of Vancouver Winter Olympics and admitted her love for the Whistler track, on which the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed last week.
Williams, leading after the opening day of the women's skeleton, held her nerve brilliantly to seal victory with two more lightning quick runs to get Britain's medal haul up and running.
"I love this track," she said after winning. "Once you get over the fear factor you learn to love it and the speed is your friend. You've got to work with it and relax and if you do that it's a great track to slide."
Williams insisted she had never let her position as overnight leader play on her mind. "I surprised myself because I wasn't really nervous," she said. "I slept absolutely perfectly and I was quite excited. It doesn't feel like an Olympic Games - it just feels like a normal World Cup race except with more people shouting for me.
"I'm not very good at statistics so I didn't realise I'm the first [individual] gold medallist for a long time. But I think it shows that if you have the determination any country can be good at any sport and you just have to concentrate and do your best."
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