For the first time in modern history, the Olympiads are taking place without an audience. The atmosphere is special and seems to bother some athletes. But can the absence of spectators at these Tokyo Olympics really have an impact on the performance of these athletes?
In the midst of the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic and its Delta variant, the Japanese authorities had no choice but to exclude the public for these new Games Tokyo Olympics. Since the modern creation of the Olympiads in 1896, this is a great first. If on the spectator side the decision obviously prevented many people from enjoying the opening ceremony of the Olympics, which took on the appearance of a spoiled party, what about the athletes?
These athletes aren't the only ones having to deal with the lack of an audience. A few months ago, the English Premier League and the Spanish La Liga indeed both accompanied the matches with crowd noises initially recorded in the FIFA 20 video game. Some football, baseball or basketball clubs have also populated the grandstands with cardboard fan cutouts, among other examples. The Tokyo Olympics, on the other hand, will not adopt any of these devices. The question is:can this also affect performance?
The strange circumstances in which these games take place could indeed put unforeseen pressure on some athletes, like gymnast Simone Biles, considered the greatest gymnast of all. time, which has just abandoned the women's team event.
Biles had been expected for months as the star of these Tokyo Games. Unable to compete, she finally stepped aside, put on a white tracksuit and cheered on her teammates. If the star will bring up her "old demons" and his anxiety problems as the main determining factors, the particular atmosphere of these Games would also have weighed in the balance. “It was really stressful these Olympics “, she told the Washington Post . “Overall, without an audience. There are a lot of different variables that come into play" .
Simone Biles' struggles are probably common among this year's Olympic athletes. “On the pitch, wherever their competition is, players have this uncertainty. They are faced with a situation they did not know before “, explains to Scientific American Louise Byrne, sports psychology practitioner in the UK. Part of the ambiguity, she adds, was caused by the suddenness of the decision.
Jamey Houle, sports psychologist at the Ohio State University Athletics (USA) and former gymnast, also recalls that the greatest athletes are trained in visualization techniques, which consist to imagine such actions or such movements to solidify neuronal connections and activate their motor cortex, the region of the brain that controls movement.
To do this, the athletes try to simulate as closely as possible the real game conditions they will face. “In preparation for the Tokyo Games, some athletes may have been training with fake crowd noise before the spectator ban was announced “, notes the psychologist. “Empty stadiums could thus have a measurable impact on player performance “.
This phenomenon is based on a psychological concept called "social facilitation", a phenomenon according to which the presence of others has a beneficial effect on an individual's performance. In sports, top athletes then tend to perform better with a crowd than when alone, while underperforming competitors are more likely to falter.
“If there is a lack of audience, then theoretically you should have a generalized level of performance not as high as before “, explains Daniel Wann, of Murray State University (Kentucky). By that logic, then, we should expect fewer Olympic records to be set this year. In addition, the gap between the athletes could also be reduced.
Finally, the acoustics of a pitch, court or stadium without fans has unintended consequences for players. Without the roar of a crowd, sounds travel farther. Conversations between referees or between coaches, which otherwise would not have been heard, could then be perceived by the athletes, thus weakening their concentration.
