Mind Games: Understanding psychological challenges of being an Olympian

Human excellence is often closely linked to human fortitude and Olympics is the prime example of it.

The Paris Games, starting on Friday, will be a gathering of 10,500 athletes, 117 of them from India, competing for a mere 329 medals.

Needless to say, talent alone won't decide who finishes on the podium. It will also boil down to the mind and how one can discipline it to cope with the grandeur and pressure of the big moments.

Visualisation, blocking out the noise and being focussed are among the techniques that are often talked about but are they as easy to implement in a highly competitive environment?

"There is a lot of pressure (already) in sports and when you compete at the Olympics, you have to be someone who has gone through a lot of highs and lows as well," explains Dr Divya Jain, a sports psychologist with Fortis Healthcare.

"In sports, you're confronted with winning and losing on a day-to-day basis, so it's not about winning every time; it's about how you recover, how qui