Even Olympic Champions Choke Under Pressure. Here’s Why.
This was originally written in 2019 on my website that no longer exists because I don’t feel like updating it.
At the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Alina Zagitova became one of the youngest figure skating Olympic champions by winning the gold medal at only 15 years old. This was exceptional but was expected, as she was undefeated throughout the 2017–18 season so far. She only had one competition left — the World Championships in Milan. She was definitely going to win gold there too, right? But she didn’t.
Instead, she finished 5th, after falling three times in her final program. It was her only loss in the 2017–18 season. Finishing 5th was still remarkable for a 15-year-old in her first season as a senior, but it was a disappointment compared to her recent Olympic win.
Alina was devastated after she finished her program. She was in tears, surely disappointed in herself. If it was another skater in her position, she would be ecstatic to even make it to the top 10. But other skaters don’t have to live up to the expectations of a celebrated Olympic champion, especially after earning that title only about 3 months before.
Alina had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Everyone expected Alina to win at Worlds, especially in the absence of her top rival and training mate, Evgenia Medvedeva. Because of these high expectations, it came as a shock to everyone when Alina didn’t meet those expectations.
How can someone as skillful, talented and successful as Alina make multiple errors in a program that she has done many times with ease throughout the season? One explanation is that she chocked under pressure. Pressure-filled situations like Alina’s caused a great deal of anxiety for her, which lead to her unsatisfactory performance at Worlds.
In high-stakes situations such as this one, the desire to perform as best as possible is thought to create performance pressure. The pressure to perform successfully often causes people to perform below their actual abilities. This phenomenon is known as choking under pressure. It isn’t just about poor performance. It’s about performing more poorly than expected, given one’s skill level, in situations where performance pressure is at a maximum.
This is common for athletes before big events, especially when they’ve recently had big wins. Athletes strive to continue to live up to those performance standards. This is why athletes try to maintain a balanced level of anxiety when preparing for their next big event. Too much anxiety, however, would impair their performance.
The psychology behind all this is quite simple. The choking under pressure phenomenon revolves around attention. Attention is a key component for working memory, which is a part of the short-term memory system responsible for maintaining task-relevant information while inhibiting irrelevant information that would distract the individual from the task at hand.
Athletic skills rely heavily on automatic processes compared to conscious processes related to working memory. Athletes are able to obtain the automaticity of their skills from years of learning and extensive training to the point where their bodies are used to the complex and demanding movements needed for them to excel in their sport. Therefore, when an athlete invests too much in their working memory by turning their attention inward on the specific processes of their performance, it could cause a disruption in the automatic motor procedures needed for the athletes to perform successfully. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens when athletes are under pressure.
Anxiety during high-stake situations causes athletes to allocate their energy to meticulously thinking about specific processes of their performance in an attempt to control their actions and ensure maximum performance. Their elevated self-consciousness can disrupt the execution of the task at hand. This intrudes on and competes with the unconscious and automatic cognitive process of their performance that allows them to perform successfully in the first place.
Alina Zagitova executed one of the most difficult jump combinations in figure skating history with ease — the triple lutz-triple loop combination. She trained really hard to achieve this, by practising the jump combination numerous times. The automaticity resulting from her training contributed to her mastery of this skill. Her body has familiarised itself with the specific movement procedures to complete the jump, to the point where it seems like it comes as second nature to her.
But, unfortunately, during the 2018 World Championships, she choked under pressure, becoming a victim to a force that has taken the confidence of many athletes before her and will keep doing so until athletes find a way to overcome it. Well, now Alina has found a way to bounce back from that. She eventually won the World title this season, as deserved.
References:
DeCaro, M. S., Thomas, R. D., Albert, N. B., & Beilock, S. L. (2011). Choking under pressure: Multiple routes to skill failure. Journal of experimental psychology: general, 140(3), 390.
Beilock, S. L., & Gray, R. (2007). Why do athletes “choke” under pressure? In G. Tenenbaum & R. C. Eklund (Eds.), Handbook of sport psychology (3rd ed., pp. 425–444). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
