Olympics 2024 | Thriving environments for elite athletes

Dr Hannah Wixcey, Research Fellow at the Welsh Institute of Performance Science and the University of South Wales (USW), has been collaborating with Sport Wales to support elite athletes to thrive.

“Thriving involves the interaction of multiple processes over time. For athletes to thrive, they need to experience both development and success across different areas of their life, such as sports, school or family. This involves functioning holistically, which is experienced by growing and succeeding, having a high sense of well-being, and increased level of subjective performance. This may be reached through having their basic psychological needs met (feeling in control, capable, and connected) and seeing challenges as chances to improve,” Dr Wixcey explained.

To create a positive culture that promotes this concept, Sport Wales has introduced some initiatives for athletes under the umbrella of the ‘Thriving Environments’ project.

Dr Simon Middlemas, Sport Psychologist at Sport Wales, said: “We wanted to really understand what would it look like if an athlete was both performing at a high level, but also developing and having good level of well-being.

“One of our initiatives has been ‘Life Stories’. We work with retired athletes, experienced coaches and leaders and we interview them about their lives to understand how their experience has changed over time. When have they thrived and when have they not?

“We have also set up ‘The Coffee Club Project’. These face-to-face ‘get togethers’ provide athletes with a ‘safe space’ where they can share knowledge and experiences, as well as building rapport and confidence. It sounds like a simple idea but there is a lot of thought and organisation that goes into the meetings so that everyone is supported in an informal and relaxed environment.

“All of this is hopefully leading the athletes to better experiences within the pressured environment in which we work.”

The project also reflects on the experiences of athletes’ parents. Sport Wales are looking to create a ‘parent playbook’, where experienced parents can mentor parents who are new to the environment, helping them to have a smoother transition which, in turn, supports the athlete.

But how do you know if athletes are thriving and what are the barriers to thriving? This is what Dr Wixcey is investigating as she collates and analyses the data from the initiatives. She said: “The aim is to identify the factors and themes that influence thriving environments and present applied recommendations back to Sport Wales on how these can be used to develop resources and interventions for sport practitioners, coaches, athletes, and parents.”

“The research is still ongoing but one of these interventions could be making use of role models, for example. If you are a young elite athlete, who are you looking up to?  Who are you taking your cues from? It might not be parents, teachers and coaches. They could be influenced by their peers.  So, for instance with life stories, we are showing them somebody who has come through that same journey so they can maybe make better transitions or better choices at different points of their life.”

Dr Middlemas said: “We are changing the way we look at performance sport from something that is purely a winning or losing exercise to a focus on development alongside performance – creating positive cultures and thereby giving athletes a better overall experience.”