Tunisia: round table discusses ways to alleviate stress among elite athletes
TUNISIAONLINENEWS- Several experts, Tunisian and foreign sports officials and athletes took part on Tuesday, at the House of Federations in Tunis, a round table on “stress management among elite athletes”.
Organized by the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Physical Education in collaboration with the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), this meeting is part of the monitoring operations of Tunisian elite athletes in preparation for forthcoming international sports events.
Mr. Gerard Garreau, a former psychiatrist and responsible for sports in the Paris Institute of Sports (INPES), Claude Fauquet, Director-General of the INPES responsible for sports policy, Mrs. Zakia Bartagi director of NADA, and Mr. Yassin Arfa, who teaches at the ISSEP Ksar Said and former national director of the Tunisian National Handball Federation, took part in the roundtable.
In addition to the testimony of major athletes, four presentations were given respectively on “psychic accompaniment of elite athletes”, the “integrated model of Olympic preparation”, the “mental component of preparation to cope with the challenges of high performance sport” and the “stress and doping”.
Referring to the psychological support of the athlete, the French psychiatrist noted that “it must have the diagnostic and assessment tools”, while insisting on listening to the athlete suffering.
Regarding the evidence on stress in high-performance sports , the Tunisian Olympic and World Champion swimmer, Oussama Mellouli, stressed the importance of serenity and motivation, while noting that the difficulties which met with during his career including being separated from relatives and some newspaper articles that cast doubts on his abilities.
For his part, the Deputy Director General of INPES (Paris), Claude Fauquet highlighted the complexity of the management of elite sport, while recognizing the importance of decision making on high performance athletes.
“The psychological preparation is inevitable, but a good operation of sports facilities is also necessary. It is in this sense, that “the psychological side is not the only guarantor of performance and it completes good organization and optimal management. The coach must be as motivated as the athlete himself, because he must be confident to win”, said Mr. Fauquet.
Presentations during the meeting, focused on four dimensions in order to achieve performance including the physical, the technical, the tactical and mental dimensions.
Tunisian specialists remarked that the strategy adopted by Tunisia in this sector is based on two aspects of coaching, namely, the social and psychological aspects.
Mr. Yacine Arfa who teaches at the ISSEP Ksar Said, said that the first aspect is intended as a social assistant service dedicated to promoting the social situation of urgent cases, the training of elite athletes, and the assistance to better manage the income of these athletes and facilitate their integration towards the end of their careers.
 |
|
|
|
