SportsPsychologist.com Blog by Dr Victor Thompson

With the not-to-surprising news that Paula Radcliffe has withdrawn from the Olympic Marathon due to a foot injury , I thought again about why this happens. For Paula’s fans, it is disappointing – though it will be much more gutting for Paula. Some of our most vivid memories of Paula are of Athens in 2004, where she stopped at the 36Km mark of the Olympic Marathon in floods of tears. Doesn’t it seem obvious to us all that athletes should just avoid becoming injured, when injuries can rule them out of competing at their best, or even competing at all? If this is obvious for us fans, why then don’t athletes ‘get it’? I believe the answer to this is that injuries aren’t always clear to an athlete and important factors get in the way of an athlete managing potential or actual injuries. Plus, this situation is compounded during an Olympic year. First of all, what is an injury? An easy example is something that stops an athlete, such as a runner, from running. Okay, but what