SportsPsychologist.com Blog by Dr Victor Thompson

What do professional cyclists think when they approach a climb? This depends on how they perceive their climbing ability, the challenge of the upcoming climb, the importance of their performance on this climb and their current sense of fatigue. If they perceive that they have the skills to do well on the climb, based on the gradient and length of the climb and the relative abilities of others, then they will approach with confidence. If instead, they believe that they don’t have that great an ability, then they may have some anxiety, trepidation, and worry with thoughts along the lines of: “This is going to hurt.” “I’m not good at this.” “I’ll get dropped.” So, how would a good climber approach a climb?   A confident rider approaches feeling calmer, more ready for the challenge, perhaps even welcoming and relishing it. They see it as a good test or a good part of the course. They may be thinking along the lines of: “Yeah, here it comes. Bring it on. This is my terrain. ...

This isn't anything academic, but simply some straight-forward thoughts I've typed-up after I was interviewed on this topic on Sky News. Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen has been asked to leave the tour after questions over whether he failed to tell the drug testing authorities where he would be during his preparation for the Tour. It has emerged that despite telling the press for over a week that he was training in Mexico, his wife’s homeland, he was actually in Italy. Suspicion has increased as to whether he purposely deceived the testers so he could take cycle of drugs or other blood doping (e.g. EPO) during this period, and only looks worse now there is evidence that he lied. Two other riders have tested positive this week for banned drugs and pre-Tour favourite Alexandre Vinokourov displayed traces of someone else’s blood – all three have been kicked out of the Tour. Worse still for British hopes, two entire teams have left the Tour along with their disgraced riders...