F i n a l P a p e r M a n a g i n g E m o t i o n s i n B i a t h l o n M e n t a l S k i l l s T r a i n i n g This paper analyzes Magdalena Neuners management and mismanagement of emotions at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. APA 5106 Mental Skills Training for Sports, Physical Activity, and Health Penny Werthner, Ph.D. María José Ramírez C. April, 2010
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Neuner's room the other night and she was speaking to her psychologist through Skype, the Internet video
service.
Ms. Neuner said her psychologist first instructed her to change her attitude about the shooting range, toembrace it rather than dread it, and to smile when she picks up her rifle. "Last year, as I would get there I
would think, 'Oh, no,' and I would be nervous. But this year, I run to the shooting range, and I get happy when I
am there," she said.
Ms. Neuner has learned to control her breathing and visualize hitting each target before she pulls the trigger.
As she skis the final stretch of the course into the shooting range, she slows down her breaths and begins to
see herself hitting the targets. The screams of the crowd and the ubiquitous sounds of clanking cowbells begin
to disappear. "I hear them when I am on the course, but never when I am on the range," she said. "I don't think
about the press or the crowds or the other leaders of the race. The focus is only on myself. As soon as I see thetargets, I tune them out."
So far the changes have produced slow and steady progress, as Ms. Neuner's shooting percentage has, at
times, risen into the mid 80s this season in competition, though when she wins it's often in spite of her
shooting rather than because of it, and she has to ski farther than anyone else on the podium.
Last month at Antholz-Anterselva in Italy, for instance, Ms. Neuner won races at 7.5 and 15 kilometres, even
though in the 15-kilometer race she missed more targets than any of the next five finishers. In the 7.5-
kilometer race, she missed one of 10 targets. The second- and third-place finishers missed none. In a 10-
kilometer race that weekend, she missed four of 20 targets, and still managed to finish second.And yet, true to her new positive outlook, Ms. Neuner won't let any of this get her down.
"I know that I can shoot well," she said Saturday night at Germany House in Whistler, her silver medal sitting at
her fingertips.
"Last year was difficult, but I made a U-turn and now I am going to show everybody that I can shoot well.
Maybe I make one mistake sometimes, but, all in all, there is a good feeling for shooting now," she said.
Matthew Karnitschnig contributed to this article.
Athletes to watch in 2010 - Biathlon
CTVOlympics.ca
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Women:
Magdalena Neuner (Germany): While former German star Uschi Disl has retired, this speedy biathlete, nickname
Turbo-Lena, is the new sensation for Germany. At age 21, she became the youngest triple World Champion in
biathlon ever. She is among the top performers in this season's World Cup -- hoping to defend her 2007-08 title -
- although she did have one total collapse in Antholz, where she lost a huge lead by missing every single shot in
her final shooting exercise. She is known to get very nervous about her standing shooting and is focused on
improving that mental hurdle before her first Olympics.
Search after Nothing Von Volker Kreisl/ Sueddeutsche de
itself in the knowledge about the fact that to a pursuer sit in the neck, correctly - to go in regard to shooting
little bit slower, but not to waste the projection. Not everyone controls this art, but this does nothing, because
there are still many other contest forms in the biathlon. However, with Magdalena Neuner was different duringthe last years. For her every running was a pursuit running.
Neuners preparation on the next Olympic season was so effective that she was also hardly thrown back by a
lighter infection at the end of November. On Friday she will run with some delay her first world cup running in
2009. Altogether she is well trained, but speed has never been with the 23-year-old the problem. What she is
asked every year afresh for, this time is her progress in the shooting range. Since also in last winter Neuner gave
away some victory. Time shot them as if she had a precision rifle with infra-red binoculars - and then again as if
she bangs with coarse meal.
Battle with the doubts
What has done itself? Neuner thinks something, however, reports not from new trainers and technical
progress, but only time of how she always felt in the running during the last years: "Already by the start I have
thought what happens if I miss again. Neuner's speciality is the fast ribbon, also the big projection and
therefore always the chance to the victory with the good last shooting. Neuner runs rapidly and then falls
deeply, and because the more frequent happened, settled this doubt: I always thought what I say to the
reporters this time if I have missed again. However, in the contest a Biathlete should think of something else.
He should completely be with his body, pay attention to his run technology, on the signals of the trainers, onthe empty spaces in the head in the shooting range. Only how does this go if lastingly of the same thoughts is
there?
"During the runnings", says Neuners home trainer Bernhard Kröll, "it has been based to itself something". If a
doubt is superior, one gets often in a parallel battle, sometime one thinks about the fact that one should not
think, and then that one determines immediately refused because one thought too much about the failure.
With laser animation, more dry training or optimized leg attitude with the shot notice such a problem cannot
be solved, that is why Neuner also tells rather what she has made in this summer strengthened: nothing. On the
one hand, she has tried out no new training forms, she has also not graduated any more bases and tempotraining than, otherwise. New is their readiness to say no. Now Neuner also cancels sponsor's appointments,
Charity-Empfänge or gala scenes because she recognized how important the idleness is. "She is a sportswoman
", says Bernhard Kröll, " needs the peace phases after the load, really. "
Help of the mental coach
A small, but perhaps essential change has come in their work then, nevertheless, even if not in the training.
Now Neuner cooperates with a mental coach, these are conversations about which she betrays like almost all
high serious runners nothing. She says only: "Once I have consisted the week with somebody, this has helped."She constructs here a wall, and this is only consistent. Since nobody in their sport has got with 20 already three
WM titles. Neuner had succeeded in 2007 in Antholz. She was pursued by the justification pressure that this
performance cannot be continued sequentially afterwards running for running. Now she does not leave the
public farther in herself near, she tries to take from the expectations in force.
"With shooting a problem is in the head, but one cannot coach the head simply so", says Neuner. Examinations
German gold medalist Magdalena Neuner to skip biathlon relay By Associated Press
February 22, 2010
WHISTLER, British Columbia Magdalena Neuner says she will not compete for Germany in the womens
biathlon relay, giving up a chance for a third gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics.
Neuner says shes exhausted after winning individual gold medals in the pursuit and mass start races, along with
a silver in the sprint. The 23-year-old German added that she prefers to skip the relay to give one of her
teammates a chance at a medal in the last biathlon event at the Olympics.
Aside from Neuner, the German womens team has struggled in Vancouver, with only Simone Hauswald getting
a medal. She won bronze in the mass start.
Neuner said her Olympic experience has been "incredibly stressful" but that she is "happy and satisfied" with her
results.
Germany's Neuner will not take part in biathlon relay
News Wires
February 22, 2010
Germany's double gold medallist biathlete Magdalena Neuner will not start Tuesday's Olympic biathlon relay.Neuner has taken herself out of the running for a third gold medal and said "I am finished with the Olympic
Games."
AFP - Germany's biathlon pin-up Magdalena Neuner has taken herself out of the running for a third gold medal
and given up her place for Tuesday's Olympic 4x6km biathlon relay.
The 23-year-old claimed her second gold of the Games when she won the 12.5km mass start on Sunday but
announced she would pull out of the team relay to give others a chance to medal.
"That was my last run," she said, having also won silver in the sprint and gold in the pursuit."I am finished with the Olympic Games.
"It was my decision. But I think that the other girls are all on form and want to secure a medal," she added after
admitting being jaded by the pressure of the Olympics Games.
German team attache Stefan Sschwarzberg said she had achieved more than she thought impossible.
"She has reached everything, and maybe even a bit more, than she ever dreamt of at these Olympic Games. So
she wanted to give her teammates a chance to win their own medals," he said.
Kocher and LeGuellec likely Canada's best bets for Olympic success in biathlon January 25, 2010
THE CANADIAN PRESS, 2010
"It's kind of like running up a flight of stairs as fast as you can, getting to the top and then trying to thread a