Recently, the Greek champions have brought brilliant medals, many awards and smiles to our country. After going through a very difficult road full of all sorts of obstacles, they reached the top. Others have failed and will try again, like our sprinter Emmanuel Karalis, who boldly claimed to have struggled with depression like tennis stars Djokovic and Osaka did in the past. The rest decided to surrender. After all, the championship is a relief, or is another world hiding behind the lights? Maybe when an athlete raises his fist of victory, he has overcome much more than he may have faced with the first steps, and the medal reflects not only the champion, but also … superman?

“K” turned to profile scientist, psychologist and sports psychologist Vangelis Vertopoulos for answers.

When we asked him if the pressure of competitiveness is unbearable, even in sports from a young age, he told us, “Many athletes and many sports specialize too early and compete in championships, and although athletes now externalize the difficulties that are spoken of for they and our society are more ready to listen, unfortunately, coaches, parents and administration, many times did not take this step and put very strong pressure on the athletes. This phenomenon has always existed, but we saw its consequences later. The pressure comes primarily from the environment of coaches and parents, and much later from sponsors. However, this pressure becomes more severe when it comes from parents and coaches. Too many coaches in all sports are learning how to communicate with athletes by learning the basic principles of sports psychology to help their athletes be more resilient. Unfortunately, many more difficult sports still have coaches where athletes start at a younger age and are under a lot of pressure. Perhaps with good intentions, but they unwittingly create difficulties because they impose a result.

The first signs appear from an early age in an athlete. And there are many times when the parent himself is the problem…

Psychologist and sports psychologist Vangelis Vertopoulos reveals through “K” the invisible world of championships.

“A child may come to us because he thinks about quitting a sport or is very tense during a match or training. An athlete comes to a sports psychologist at a younger age at the initiative of a parent. He sees that there is a difficulty and tells us, for example. that in training he performs, but in the match he fights too much. It is often found there that the parent himself creates the problem with his attitude of “coach” from the podium. When an athlete struggles, is stressed or has other difficulties that they are trying to cope with, there are certain reasons,” Mr. Vertopoulos emphasizes and continues: “One of them is the athlete’s own temperament and the temperament of the athlete. We all have different personalities, some of us may have an inborn tendency to stress or disappointment, to sadness, melancholy or anger. In addition, there is the athlete’s immediate environment that lives and lives with his sporting efforts, and there we find other reasons. What is this Wednesday? Those who participate directly or indirectly in an athlete’s effort, regardless of age. And these are two types of parents: Parents who very consciously see their child and say, “I’m going to be a champion,” for entirely their own reasons and their own repressed reasons. They are like those who say, “We graduated from university” when their child graduates, and are proud of their own idea of ​​how worthy and important they are due to the achievements of their children. This is the category of parents that creates many difficulties for children. Another category of parents are those who, with the best of intentions, try to support the child, but do not have the knowledge and education for this. In addition to working with athletes, we also teach parents how to communicate with children and how to behave at a match. Go to training or not? What to say to a child when he asks them “how are you?”. These are traps into which the parent, although he wants to support his child with good intentions, unwittingly falls into them, throwing the “grains” of stress on the child.

But is it just “arguments” of stress or “arguments” of bad behavior and mentality?

“This is because we have the wrong direction inside. We are too excited about the result and the victory, when in fact what touches and should be applauded is the effort. I will not hide from you that as a former athlete and fencing coach, as I developed and matured, I realized that when two athletes compete, one of them may not get a duel at all. When I realized how admirable the efforts of this athlete, who does not receive anything, who is … anti-talent, then the sport for me became something much more spectacular and much more mobile.

On how a parent or the world could see the effort rather than the result, and whether our temperament and lack of education are to blame, Mr. Vertopoulos argues:

“Every nation has its own culture and customs. Essentially, as you said, this is a matter of education, and here we must seize this opportunity. To educate and educate the parent and coach is what we are trying to do – to understand that it is really worth being proud of the child’s efforts in his beloved business and that even if he loses or knows a severe defeat, he is equally capable of being proud of the effort. They lack stones from this part of the formation. And since parents and coaches are often unwilling or unable to understand these things, we focus more on the athlete himself. To become more durable. To get bulletproof against bad mentality. We, as sports psychologists, must build the athlete himself so that he is more resilient and does not suffer from all this.