the InMind blog

Olympic Mind: An International Special Issue on The Psychology of Extraordinary Sports Performance

• written by Lisa Musculus

Olympic Mind: An International Special Issue on the Psychology of Extraordinary Sports Performance

Performing the Biles 3 in gymnastics, running 100m in 9.58 seconds, or lifting 267 kg are just a few astonishing examples of world-record performances in Olympic sports. In 2024 the whole world will once again be able to testify ca. 10,500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees striving to perform at their very best in 32 different sports. Extraordinary sports performance is multifaceted relying on a well-trained body and a well-trained mind. In this special issue, we aim to uncover the „Olympic Mind“ by focusing on psychological aspects of elite sports performance. For the special issue, research focusing on psychological determinants and/or psychological consequences of sports performance is of interest. With the special issue, we aim to provide an overview of state-of-the-art research on the psychology of sports performance; thereby, covering the manifold research areas: perception, cognition, and action; motivation, and emotion; individual differences and personality as well as social and psychophysiological aspects of sports performance. The idea behind the „Olympic Mind“ international special issue is, beyond the specific content focus, driven by the idea of international collaboration. As conveyed by the Olympic spirit, we encourage interested authors to gather in an international team of authors and to submit a joint article in English. The English article will be reviewed and we encourage the authors to translate the accepted article to any of the other in-Mind publication languages (i.e., Dutch, French, German, Italian), in which it will – pending minimal language review – then be published in addition to the English version.

We invite authors to submit an abstract (max. 250 words) of their work by December 12th, 2023. Please submit your abstract here. Based on the abstracts submitted, the editorial team will make a decision and send out invitations to contribute a full-length article. The submission deadline for the full-length articles will be the end of February 2024 and the final publication of the articles within the special issue is planned for the beginning of the Olympic Games (26.7.2024 – 11.08.2024).

For questions of any kind, please get in touch with the special-issue editors via:
olympic-mind@in-mind.org

Editors

Lisa Musculus (Germany)
Elisa Bisagno (Italy)
Sylvain Laborde (France)
Ruud den Hartight (The Netherlands)