Contest Mental Preparation

Water off a duck's back

There are so many things that degrade performance, many things that can interfere with concentration, mental toughness is what’s required to put all the other personal preparations spoken about previously into place, to get the ultimate performance – the one that will see you with the most amount of points on the last day, ultimately, that’s all that really matters.

Bad Day Recovery

So what is a necessary attribute to be the world champion? It requires great mental strength to cope with a bad day or an outlanding on the first few days, to not lose your will to win for the rest of the competition, or even just having a slow point mid-flight after or during a mistake. 

I personally put it behind me (no matter what the event), even after that low/slow point in this example, I envisage myself going through another start gate at that very moment in time, I say to myself “I am going to be the fastest pilot in the sky from this moment forth, no one can keep up with me”.  After all, you can gain another 20-200pts than you usually would have with the wrong attitude from just that one moment.  Would you want those extra points above at the end of the comp? Damn straight, so fight for them, be the fastest and best pilot you can be from this moment forward!

Crews and opposition pilots will often make remarks too, calculated to deliberately to put you off your game, even though competitions are relatively friendly in Australia and America. Go to the world championships, and some competitors can take it to an unbelievable level.  I’ve heard in recent years a winning pilot so threatened by another, deliberately made a fight with the contest director and the nearby pilot over a logger issue, just to put the pilot in 2nd place off his game – it worked, he flunked the day completely, & after that, there were no other pilots in contention, that problem was dealt with...

So you’ll need to come up with measures in order to deal with this, which there are many. The most important thing is to be able to avoid having someone destroy your competitive will to succeed.  You can build your immunity to this by thinking about scenarios, this can extend to things like I just broke my TE probe or got a flat on the grid, or someone ruffled your feathers by saying don’t get to close to me today Fred – think how you’ll deal with these things in advance, before the competition, then action them on the day of the comp with ease, followed by flying a great flight.

To wrap up these three articles

• You did not do enough practice: if at the end of the competition you found yourself improving on each flight...
• You were not fit enough: if you found that in the last few days that your performance was dropping off.
• Your mental preparation was not good enough: if you performed badly on one or more days after being spooked or put off by an event.
• Top marks of course if none of the above applies to you!
• You will have to improve your performance level though: if you weren’t the winner, think how, practice it and put it into action next time, always re-evaluate!

When it comes down to the top 5 pilots of any competition, there is actually very little that separates them all. It’s usually the one who works the hardest to get that 1 percenter that usually takes home the top dog position!

 Adam Woolley was born into the gliding world, being the 3rd generation in his family. Going solo at 15, his thirst for efficiency in soaring flight & quest for a world championship title to his name has never wavered. One big passion is sharing his experiences & joy with other glider pilots all around the world. Adam is an airline pilot in Japan on the B767 & spends his off time chasing summer around the globe. He has now won 7 national Championships & represented Australia at 5 WGC's & 1 EGC.