The efforts of elite sport to overcome the challenges of Covid-19 was the theme of the latest Kitman Labs interactive webinar. A mental performance consultant, a former UK special forces soldier and the Performance Director of an Olympic sport shared their insights and experiences with attendees from sports organisations in the UK, Europe and the U.S.
The first expert voice was Dr. Veronique Richard. She works with several Canadian national teams including water polo and artistic swimming as well as individual elite athletes in gymnastics, figure skating and trampoline. She also works with Cirque du Soleil where she supports artists’ performance and well-being. Dr. Veronique explained her definition of mental resilience and how this can be applied in periods of adversity and challenge. She also outlined how performers and coaches can continue to be innovative and creative, despite facing major disruptions, by using mental skills.
Former UK Special Forces officer, Wayne Hoyle, was the next contributor. He is also a co-founder of The Extreme Leaders consultancy and has more than 30 years’ experience of operating in challenging situations and some of the world’s most hostile environments. His contribution included a gripping account of real-life hostage rescue and an explanation of how best to debrief and review highly-pressurised events, to gain the maximum insight and learning.
The webinar was completed with a contribution from the British Judo Association Performance Director, Nigel Donohue. He explained how he, his coaches and athletes had been preparing for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and how they adapted to the delay and disruption caused by Covid-19. Nigel Donohue also gave an insight into athletes’ reactions to this adversity and how they had been provided with alternative home-based training activities.
The webinar also included an extended opportunity for viewers to put their questions to the three contributors and a range of related topics and themes were covered in this section.
In case you missed it, view the on-demand webinar by registering below.