29 Jul Injuries & Expectations.
Loving the start to the Olympics – fab facilities and great atmospheres!
Just wanted to urge a note of caution on your favourite competitors’ performance over these next couple of weeks. Olympians, like most top-level sports stars are training and playing through injury. It might just be a niggle, it might be slightly more significant, but it will be something. Occasionally (read Kelly Holmes 2008), they are symptom free and their true potential is unleashed, but most often it will have a detrimental effect on performance.
Professional footballers or cricketers will more aften than not pull out of an event. They might have to miss a cup final, but next season and the chance of another cup final is only a matter of weeks away. For an Olympic competitor, it’s not like that. It’s only once every four years and there is a good chance in four years time you might not be at the required level of quality. Olympians are human and if they have the chance to compete, they will. It might be their only chance, ever.
So, when you are watching the rowing, the badminton or the 800m this August, bear in mind your “favourite” might just have a calf niggle meaning he or she is only 93% fit. Can’t blame him or her for giving it a go, but 93% probably won’t even get him or her into the final, let alone a medal.
Go GB!!
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