PROJECT

High level athletes are ordinary individual facing with "extraordinary" situations (competitions). Young non professional sport athletes can also face in lower extent such challenge when taking part to competition. Mental preparation is intended to provide weapons to face this confrontation. These weapons are mental skills that he will use in his sport performance and daily life.

Mental skills (or mental toughness) allow a person to become a better athlete (such as difficult training or difficult competitive situations in games) and emerge without losing confidence. Mental toughness is a controversial term, in that many people use the term liberally to refer to any set of positive attributes that helps a person to cope with difficult situations. Coaches and sport commentators freely use the term mental toughness to describe the mental state of athletes who persevere through difficult sport circumstances to succeed. Mental skills concent is primarily used in high level sport environment but can also apply to amateur sport practitioners.

Experts have highlighted that the attributes of a mentally tough athlete in one sport may differ greatly between sport disciplines and contexts. Differences have been hypothesized between "team sport" and "individual sport" athletes, but to date, little empirical evidence has shown what these differences are.

Mental skills training programmes are featured by a large variety of existing practices. They are not specifically based on consolidated scientific background but are rather developed in an empirical way, depending on the cultural context, on the sport disciplines and the professional background of trainer/coaches.

Mental skills training programmes are not always positively considered. They can be associated in some cases with suspicions of “mental manipulation”, as Scottish Canoe Association mentions. Mental preparation indeed implies working on the "mental" capacities of individuals and sports and public authorities are therefore paying attention to any potential deviations especially as far as young athletes are concerned. Mental preparation programmes, when applying to grass roots/non professional sport practitioners, can also demonstrate a high level of influence on beneficiaries, especially youngsters, state Centro Sportivo Italiano.

Development of mental skills among sport practitioners, especially young high level athletes, can play a high and positive role in limiting any threats to sport integrity, such as doping.

Professional athletes must build up their mental capacities to increase their sport performance but also need to regulate the high level of pressure and challenges that could in some circumstances lead to misbehaviour. This specific issue is and should be part of the mental skills training programmes that are delivered by coaches/trainers to sport practitioners. There is a need to increase the level of coachers competencies on this topic, where trainers involved in different sport disciplines do not share enough about it, states CREPS ile de France.

The “mental skills for sport integrity” project intends to review, analyse and highlight existing mental training practices within European context and highlight in which extent they contribute to preserve sport integrity among young sport practitionners (amateur or high level athletes).

The project targets trainers and coachers that support all kind of young sport practitioners such grass roots clubs athletes but more specifically young high level athletes, in the extent that youngsters are to be more vulnerable.