Dramatic road to the first bronze medal

Serbian canoe sprinters Moldovan sisters successfully sprinted for bronze medals aton 2014 Canoe Sprint European Championships in K2 category. In particular, this achievement is to be attributed to long­term work with their own psyche and periodic SportMind diagnostics.

In spite of her enormous talent and great physical strength Serbian canoeist Nikolina Moldovan suffered from many problems during her transition from junior to senior category. Troubles always occurred not only before important performance but also during the contest, when according to her words her whole body froze.

“In about half of the competitions she convulsed, unable to paddle she froze to the spot and did not finish,” explains sport psychologist Marijana Mladenovič, who for over a half of a year exerted great effort to help the Serbian competitor with said condition.

Sport psychologist investigated the psychological state with interview and standardized questionnaire (CSAI­2). “The canoeist always seemed to be prepared but the body inertia kept returning. After the finish Nikolina often admitted she felt certain symptoms which she previously did not admit to herself as e.g. abdominal tension,” remembers Mladenovič.

Finally, SportMind provided much better understanding of what was going on. The results of the diagnostics clearly showed how Nikolina, right before an important event, stoppedstops concentrating on the competition itself and how all her energy wasis drained by her own fear. “It was the feeling of fear which paralysed her mind and literally shut her body down,” says sport psychologist who eventually managed to select appropriate intervention techniques in order to fix the problems. “Every time when such results occurred we tried to get away from the competition area even if it was just few moments before the race and in preparation phase we engaged for instance special relaxing techniques.” After four months with SportMind the team gotwas finally awarded. The canoeists won their first big medal, a European bronze one!

In the autumn 2014 the cooperation with SportMind continued and Nikolina managed to achieve her first individual success by winning silver medal in K1 category.

The full story about the success of Serbian canoeists was presented at 2nd International Sport Psychology Symposium in Zagreb, Croatia on 16. 5. 2015.

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