EIS performance psychologists are labelling London 2012 the "Psychological Games" due to the importance of tackling the advantages and disadvantages that a home Olympcs and Paralympics brings.

The team will be working across a number of sports to put effective tools in place to help athletes and coaches gain the vital mental edge which can make the difference between winning and losing.

Mark Bawden, the head of performance psychology at the EIS, told insidethegames that there is a different mental challenge for athletes to overcome at each Olympics and that athletes must be psychological prepared for that challenge if they are to perform to the best of their abilities during the Games.

Bawden said: "There are always different psychological challenges for the athletes to face at each Olympic Games.

"At Sydney 2000, there was the extensive travel and the jetlag to mentally overcome due to flying to the other side of the world.

"At Athens 2004, there were the psychological problems with poor accommodation to counter as well as logistical problems and at Beijing 2008, we had to prepare athletes to cope mentally with the fog and the pollution while also competing in a completely different environment to the one in which they are use to competing in.  

"At London 2012, we obviously don’t have travel or adaption problems but we do have the potentially major psychological problems of managing huge expectation in front of a home crowd and that is why London is the 'Psychological Games' for GB athletes."

Bawden (pictured), a chartered sports psychologist and performance coach with over 15 years experience, admitted that there are great advantages of competing at a home Games but warned that those can turn into negatives if not managed correctly.

He said: "Having a home crowd is a huge advantage but if athletes feel too much pressure to perform, the crowd can become a disadvantage and actually hamper their performance.

"Similarly with the venues; if athletes get use to the venue they are competing at in 2012, it can be a great advantage but if they become overly familiar with it, they might struggle during the Games when the venue they are use to changes because it has 50,000 fans in it and a huge amount of security that they did not expect and that mentally puts them off their game.

"So what we do is work with athletes as individuals.

"Every athlete is different and copes with pressure in different ways but anyone can learn to cope if you know yourself and know where your confidence comes from.

"We work in particular with the coaches because they can ensure that athletes are always proactively accessing themselves mentally as the way to cope with pressure is to know yourself well and know what is psychologically best for you."

Bawden also claimed that, while athletes cannot recreate what a home Games will be like in 2012, sport specific training techniques can be modified to help recreate a pressured environment for athletes like Christine Ohuruogu (pictured), who will be defending her Olympic 400 metres title in London.  

"People say that you can’t practice taking penalties at World Cup finals because you cannot replicate the pressure, but that is not true.

"Obviously you can’t replicate a huge crowd, a vital penalty and the fact that if you miss it, you will be in all of the newspapers for months; but you can train your mind about the importance of getting it right first time if you constantly train and compete in a pressure environment.

"Pressure usually has three affects on people: you get better and perform at a high level you never have before, you keep to the same level as usual or you can’t cope with the pressure and you drop a level.

"Our goal is to make sure that the GB athletes at least maintain their normal level or get better and do not drop their level because of pressure.

"There is no individual example that shows the best way to cope with pressure but if athletes know themselves and know what mentally makes them function best, it gives them the best chance of coping with the pressure and still competing at their highest level."

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