Pre-Olympic Congress welcomes Phl study

Filipina sports psychologist Marissa Adviento will deliver an oral presentation on “The Making of a Champion: a Narrative Inquiry into the Life Stories of Elite Athletes” as one of 40 grantees from over 2,000 applicants at the pre-Olympic International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS) in Glasgow, Scotland, on July 19-24.

About 3,000 researchers, practitioners, pedagogues, clinicians and sports scientists are expected to attend the plenary session that will kick off the five-day conference envisioned to be the stage for the exchange of cutting-edge technology and multi-disciplinary approaches towards the celebration of sports science in the international arena. The first ICSEMIS was held in Beijing before the previous Olympics in 2008 and featured celebrities like Ian Thorpe, Jackie Chan and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair sharing experiences in their drive for excellence. Participants interacted with the celebrities then were split into groups for workshops. This year’s agenda will focus on oral presentations covering different topics under the general heading of elite performance.

Adviento, 49, called the ICSEMIS the Olympics of Sports Science. She will reveal her findings on the evolution of a champion athlete from case studies of the lives of Eugene Torre of chess, Paeng Nepomuceno and Bong Coo of bowling and Efren (Bata) Reyes and Django Bustamante of billiards.

“My dream is to write about the drive for perfection of Filipino achievers like Lisa Macuja and Lea Salonga and global icons like Nadia Comaneci and Michael Jordan,” said Adviento. “We can learn from their experiences and share the lessons with athletes. These achievers never rest until they reach the summit. They go beyond standards and set their own. As a sports psychologist, my job is to make the athlete believe in himself or herself. I’m not a savior. The whole process is about drawing from within.”

Adviento’s participation in the ICSEMIS was confirmed by Natalie Campbell, coordinator of the Higher Education Unit for the London Olympics. She was initially tapped to make an oral presentation and later awarded a travel scholarship to Glasgow. Adviento passed two tests to qualify as a presentor and grantee. Her pitch will be to promote sports psychology through the experiences of five Filipino world-class athletes.

“There is no way we can make it without giving our national athletes all the sports science support they need to be competitive in the global arena,” she said. “Sports psychology is one of the integral components of their competitive arsenal. There are hardly any training secrets nowadays. However, after all the bodies have been conditioned to the fullest, what remains to be the advantage of the champion is really the mindset.”

Adviento said she will disclose how the five Filipinos willed themselves to be champions. “I saw extreme passion for their sport in interviewing the five stars,” she said. “Eugene declared he’s married to chess. Paeng called his love for bowling a crazy love. Bong spoke about her romance with bowling and her ardent love for the sport. Bata was articulate in explaining his relationship with the pool table, that it’s like he knows how the table feels, if it’s warm, tired or fresh. It was the same with Django.”

Adviento said from the life stories, she saw an underlying romantic plot of heroes in quest for excellence against all odds, the positive framing of obstacles as the opposition in disguise and the mindset of never getting discouraged, treating hurdles as temporary and coming back tougher from setbacks. “We want to build a positive perspective by relating how champions weave their stories in every episode,” she said. “We view the stories as a diagnostic tool.”

Adviento has worked with athletes from shooting, table tennis, basketball, taekwondo, bowling, baseball, swimming and golf in developing mental toughness. “The higher the level of competition, the more an athlete appreciates the value of mental conditioning for that critical edge,” she said. “I think every country that competes in the Olympics must be backed up by a sports psychologist. Athletes who qualify for the Olympics are subject to being overwhelmed by the entire experience and therefore must be mentally prepared to cope.”

Adviento said a sports psychologist doesn’t work in a vacuum. “In dealing with athletes or sports teams, we work closely with the coaching staff, the physical trainers, the nutritionist and others involved in the development of elite performers,” she said. “I’ve worked with collegiate and professional athletes and I find the work both challenging and gratifying. What drives a collegiate athlete is different from a professional athlete’s motivation. My work is to tailor-fit a mental program looking at a desired outcome and different expectations. I’ve worked with PBA players coming off an ACL injury and while they were physically healed, they weren’t mentally prepared to overcome the psychological trauma of being injured. The idea of being ‘damaged goods’ is threatening but with proper mental care, we’ve had cases of ACL injury survivors recovering to be even better than how they were before.”

Adviento, an Ateneo faculty member the last eight years, is a taekwondo black belter and competitive swimmer. Her five children are all into sports. Hiyas, 25, is a taekwondo black belter and swimmer. Sinag, 22, is a second dan taekwondo black belter. Alab, 17, is with the UST swimming team. Himig, 14, likes swimming, frisbee and basketball. Likha, 10, is a swimmer. “I find that athletes relate more easily with a sports psychologist who is also into sports,” she said.