Macquarie University/The Lighthouse
Athletes competing at the Tokyo Olympics are likely to face highly partisan crowds with overseas spectators barred from attending – but top performers won’t let it change their game, says Macquarie University researcher Dr Kath Bicknell.
Japan’s ban on international spectators attending the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games could change the whole vibe of the Games.
Olympic uncertainty: COVID-19 is putting the postponed Tokyo Games at risk once again, but if they do go ahead, athletes will deal with more stressors than usual.
“There are definitely some athletes who really feed off the crowd, and they are going to need to find different strategies to stay motivated and on-task and rise to the occasion,” says Dr Kath Bicknell, whose research in the Department of Cognitive Science looks at embodied cognition in athletes and other top performers.