FIVE FAMOUS SPORTING MELTDOWNS

ACLEAR and positive mind could be the difference between ecstasy and agony for Commonwealth Games athletes, according to one of the Gold Coast’s leading sports psychologists.

As thousands of the world’s best athletes put their bodies to the test at the Games, Griffith University School of Applied Psychology professor David Neumann says mental strength will play an equally important role.

“Your body is doing the running and doing the catching ... but you’ve got to have that overriding control from your brain and if you don’t have that – if your mind is off somewhere else or you’re feeling under pressure too much – then your body is not going to do what it needs to do,” said Neumann, whose 10year career has included work with the Queensland Academy of Sport and Griffith’s GAPS athlete program.

Amid the unprecedented pressure of the Games, Neumann said some athletes could fall into the trap of thinking negatively.

He said the key to avoiding those pitfalls was to “keep things simple”.

“When people are under a pressure situation they start

Greg Norman (golf):

Leading by six shots entering the final round of the 1996 US Masters, the Shark collapsed to hand Englishman Nick Faldo a five-stroke win.

Seemingly cruising for their first World Cup since 1974, the Socceroos gave up a 2-0 lead in the last 20 minutes of their 1997 qualifier against Iran.

Socceroos (football):

to get distracted things,” he said.

“Those little external distractions all of a sudden become greatly magnified and under normal situations we can cope – we can just put in more effort – but what happens is that these distractions just start to overload our processing systems and they’re just not able to cope with the task at hand.

“They (could

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Jana Novotna (tennis):

While the Czech ace would go on to claim the 1998 Wimbledon singles title, she is arguably best remembered for her 1993 meltdown when she gave up a 4-1 lead against Steffi Graf in the third set of the final.

The FIFA World Player of the Year in 1993, Baggio

Roberto Baggio (football):

thinking inwardly, so instead of focusing outwardly on the task at hand and what they want to achieve, they’re not thinking about the future, which they need to do.

“For those types of people, it’s just a matter of staying calm and blocking out those distractions as much as possible so they can just focus on one or two of those key things they need to during their performance.”

Experience was also crucial. “Some athletes are just better at regulating their arousal, not being too uptight and caught up in the moment of it all and can control themselves a lot better,” he said.

“The best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour so if they’ve done well in pressure situations in the past it’s probably your best guarantee they’re going to do well in the future.”

Despite being one of 11 debutants in the Hockeyroos squad, forward Steph Kershaw, 22, said she was embracing the pressure as the side chased a fourth straight Games gold.

“We put the pressure on ourselves because we think we should be in the gold medal match and we think we should be winning that gold,” the Townsville product said.

“I think anything else, we will be disappointed.”