No abstract

This consensus statement is the product of an international Think Tank on the initiative of the International Society of Sport Psychology. The purpose of the Think Tank was to unify major sport psychology organizations in a discussion of the current status and future challenges of applied and research aspects of athlete mental health. The contributors present six propositions and recommendations to inspire sport organizations and researchers. The propositions are: Mental health is a core component of a culture of excellence; Mental health in a sport context should be better defined; Research on mental health in sport should broaden the scope of assessment; Athlete mental health is a major resource for the whole athletic career and life post-athletic career; The environment can nourish or malnourish athlete mental health; and Mental health is everybody's business but should be overseen by one or a few specified members. It is recommended that researchers unite to develop a more contextualized definition of athlete mental health and more comprehensive strategies of assessment, as well as join forces with sporting organizations to investigate sustainable elite sport environments and the role of the mental health officer. Sport organizations are advised to recognize athlete mental health as a core component of a healthy elite sport system and a key indicator of their effectiveness, support research initiatives, and to promote the mental health literacy of all their staff while engaging a mental health officer with the responsibility to oversee a support system.

This paper is a comprehensive update of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) Position Stand on career development and transitions of athletes issued a decade ago (Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009, ISSP Position Stand: Career development and transitions of athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 395-412.). A need for updating the 2009 Position Stand has grown out of the increasing inconsistency between its popularity and high citation, on the one hand, and its dated content that inadequately reflects the current status of athlete career research and assistance, on the other. During the last decade, sport psychology career scholars worked on structuring the athlete career knowledge and consolidating it into the athlete career (sport psychology) discourse (ACD). The aims of this paper are to: (1) update the decade-long evolution and describe the current structure of the ACD, (2) introduce recent trends in career development and transition research, (3) discuss emerging trends in career assistance, and (4) summarise in a set of postulates the current status and future challenges of the ACD.

Track and field includes a number of high-intensity disciplines with many demanding practices and represents a motivational challenge for talented athletes aiming to make a successful transition to the senior elite level. Based on a holistic ecological approach, this study presents an analysis of a particular athletic talent development environment, the IFK Växjö track and field club, and examines key factors behind its successful history of creating top-level athletes. The research takes the form of a case study. Data were collected from multiple perspectives (in-depth interviews with administrators, coaches and athletes), from multiple situations (observation of training, competitions and meetings) and from the analysis of documents. The environment was characterized by a high degree of cohesion, by the organization of athletes and coaches into groups and teams, and by the important role given to elite athletes. A strong organizational culture, characterized by values of open co-operation, by a focus on performance process and by a whole-person approach, provided an important basis for the environment's success. The holistic ecological approach encourages practitioners to broaden their focus beyond the individual in their efforts to help talented junior athletes make a successful transition to the elite senior level.

Sport psychology services to high performance athletes during These are trying times for us all. COVID-19 has altered our lives as citizens. The changes associated with the current pandemic have presented sport and exercise psychologists with many challenges and opportunities related to sport performance, physical activity and health. Here, we focus on what was, and is presently, being encountered by mental performance consultants in relation to the aspiring Olympic athletes they are supporting.Within recent weeks, mental performance consultants working with Olympic aspirants have evidenced a growing number of suggestions how aspiring athletes might proceed in their sports and in their broader lives, based on their national conditions and regional responses to the pandemic. Each national funding agency, Olympic committee, federal government, and sport organisation, is rolling out strategies of how mental performance consultants can work effectively with clients in what for many, but not all, is a socially distanced world.Discussions have varied from the challenges that athletes are encountering to issues associated with social isolation, career disruption, qualification process uncertainty, and unconventional and limited access to effective training environments and training partners. Underpinning these considerations is the health and wellbeing of athletes in their pursuits toward excellence.Historically, editorials within the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology were paired with special issues, such as the one focused on international approaches to Olympic athlete performance, published in 2016. Within the current editorial, however, there is a deviation in approach, caused by a global circumstancesport is not being experienced as usual; the challenges posed for those engaging in sport, region by region, are uncharted.The focus we have set, in what should have been the 2020 Olympic year, is placed on the shared challenges and the emergence of solutions that mental performance consultants are presently undertaking in their work with athletes. The co-authors of this editorial are from Asia, Europe, and North America. We have published on the topic of Olympic performance and we are currently immersed in work with Olympic athletes in our respective countries. What follows is a synthesised commentary.The reader might posit that embedded in each author's work, approaches are idiosyncratic and driven partly by culture and context, which is a correct assumption. For example, some of us are working from a distance, where others are consulting face-to-face. However, what we share in common is astounding, despite our respective locations and circumstances. We present this editorial, structured into three temporal stages: (a) before the 2020 Olympics were postponed, (b) once the Olympics were postponed, and (c) the path being re-set toward Tokyo, 2021. Before Olympic postponementLife tends to be normal before crisis transitions are experienced, within and outside of highperformance sport. Within high-per...