As a high-performing athlete, you can train endlessly. But the pressure and environment of an Olympic competition are hard to replicate. This posed an exciting challenge for movement scientists David Mann and Daniel Müller from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. They collaborated with NOC*NSF to design a virtual reality environment that mimics the competitive stage of the Olympic Games in Paris, allowing archers to prepare for it.
The stands are packed, and your performance is being broadcast by camera live across the globe. Your opponent has just put in an excellent score, and now it’s your turn. Olympic gold is on the line. How do you handle this situation? And can you prepare for it?
Training day in and day out on the field is one thing, but keeping your cool on the Olympic stage is quite another. Can virtual reality (VR) help athletes in their preparation? That’s the question David Mann (Associate Professor of Sports Sciences) and Daniel Müller (PhD candidate in Human Movement Sciences) set out to answer. For this project, funded by the Dutch Research Agenda, they collaborated with various VR organisations in the Netherlands. They worked with NOC*NSF to identify sports that could benefit from VR. Together, they decided to help Dutch archers perform under pressure.
Mental preparation
They designed a VR environment that simulates the conditions at the Olympic Games in Paris as closely as possible. This is used at the Papendal sports centre in Arnhem, where many top athletes train. With the VR headset on, the archers can mentally prepare for their big moment and familiarise themselves with the environment. For example, they can get to know the location of the scoreboard, the coaches and the supporters.
“The archers train frequently, and perform better in training than in competitions,” says David Mann. “During training, they only hear their teammates and perhaps some birds around the field. In competitions, they face so many distractions and pressures; it’s hard to replicate that.”
The archers will compete in Paris in a temporary stadium, specifically built for the Olympic Games. It’s unfamiliar territory. The competition will take place on the Esplanade des Invalides, an urban park in front of Hôtel des Invalides. This setting is recreated in the VR environment.
Maintaining routine
Of course, practising with the VR headset is not a replacement for physical training; they don’t shoot real arrows. The training focuses on the mental aspect. “In the VR environment, we’ve incorporated lots of distractions that the coaches can control – like noise from the crowd or photographers. The goal is for the athletes to maintain their routine as well as possible in spite of these distractions,” explains Mann. Coaches can also manipulate the scores of the athletes and their virtual opponents, allowing athletes to cope with leading or trailing in this setting. Coaches can also gain additional insight into athletes' behaviour. For example, coaches see through the perspective of archers, and there are eye trackers that track the athletes' eye movements as they prepare to shoot.
The coaches of the Dutch archers are enthusiastic about the contribution of VR to their training routine. Hopefully, this innovative preparation for the Olympic Games will translate into medals. Mann and Müller will certainly be following the performance of the Dutch team with keen interest.