India, the world’s most populous country with over 1.4 billion inhabitants, is struggling to shine at the Summer Olympics. Since 1980, its athletes have won only 19 medals, including 2 gold, while Canada has won 204 (45 gold) in the last 10 Games. In Paris, the Indian nation, once a world power in field hockey, will have its eyes on the top step of the podium. To achieve this, it has banked on a leading expert in the development of advanced athletes and sports psychology, Quebecer Pierre Beauchamp. “I tell everyone: ‘If we don’t win a medal, they’re going to rip me apart!'” laughs the PhD holder, reached in New Delhi a month before the start of the competitions.
The sports sage has the opportunity to put his own teachings into practice: “Yes, I feel the pressure, but you have to accept it because it’s part of the mandate.” A mandate he accepted more than two years ago, that of building a team capable of winning medals in pistol, rifle (rifle) and the shotgun, the three categories of “Olympic” weapons.
At the time of our videoconference, the high performance director of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) had just returned from France, where his 21 competitors (men and women) and their coaches were able to acclimatize, since when they left Delhi, the thermometer read 50 °C, about thirty more than at their destination, “and that affects performance”. These days, the Indian team is training at the National Shooting Sport Center in Châteauroux, not far from Bourges, some 250 km south of Paris, where the events will be held.
What is his daily routine filled with, a few days before the opening of the XXXIII Games?e Olympiad? “Politics, and more politics! Many people are pulling the team’s cover: the government that finances the program, the athletes’ personal coaches, who want to be on the trip, the national coaches, who have their point of view, the representatives of other sports federations [indiennes]who want to give us a hand, not to mention the sponsors. It’s a lot of negotiations, and not being Indian myself, it’s more difficult. I sometimes feel like I have the power, but not always the authority…”
Beauchamp is responsible for all: the athletes, the five physiotherapists, the five sports psychologists and the twenty or so coaches. To accomplish his mission, he can count on his friend, his compass in Indian society, Abhinav Bindra. “The Wayne Gretzky of shooting for Indians!” he proclaims. Raised to the rank of national hero, gold medalist in the 10-meter air rifle shooting at the Beijing Games in 2008, Bindra won the very first individual gold medal in the history of the Olympics for his country, the first Asian state (although still under British colonial rule at the time) to participate in the Games in modern history, in 1900, in Paris.
This is because shooting is taken seriously by the Indians: “Here, young people, from 8, 10, 12 years old, attend shooting academies. It is even taught in the physical education program at school. It is a bit like hockey in our country: the Indians consider shooting as a sport. When we organize national competitions here, they can attract 100,000 spectators.”
Sports science
Passionate about hockey and golf, Pierre Beauchamp was a hockey player at the university level before moving behind the bench in the role of coach. “After 16 years as coachI still didn’t understand why athletes who didn’t display exceptional skills at, say, 16 or 17 years old often ended up being the most successful.” It was a question of motivation, he presumes.
Shooting and golf are the same thing, in terms of sports psychology: it happens between the two ears. As in golf, the technical dimension is important, but it’s in the head that it’s played out, and my job is to explain that as simply as possible for everyone.
A hypothesis studied and verified at the University of Montreal and McGill, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on “intrinsic motivation in sport”. Now a sports psychologist, he has worked with the Canadian Olympic Committee, then for various sports federations here (speed skating and ski cross) and elsewhere (in Russia, Norway, and India, as an advisor during the London and Rio de Janeiro Games).
During the pandemic, he had received two or three offers from foreign sports federations ahead of the Paris Games, “but the challenge was bigger here in India, and I like challenges.” Everything had to be built within the NRAI: “What they lack [pour s’illustrer aux Jeux olympiques]it’s the science of sports, which they don’t know how to apply. Coach development is not as advanced as it is here, so when I was doing clinics with athletes, I was forcing the coaches to take part. I needed them to learn the concepts, starting with the concept of team building. Shooting is an individual sport, but at the end of the day, you’re a team.”
Between the two ears
In life, as in hockey, golf and shooting, everything happens in the head, maintains the sports psychologist. “Shooting, golf, it’s the same thing, in terms of sports psychology: it happens between the two ears, maintains Pierre Beauchamp. As in golf, the technical dimension is important, but it’s in the head that it’s played out, and my job is to explain it as simply as possible for everyone.”
On a strictly scientific level, sport shooting is essentially based on vision and breathing control, he summarizes. “The first thing I taught when I arrived in the program was breathing.”
So, Beauchamp calculates the breathing rate of each athlete to measure, using software from ” biofeedback » that he developed with a Montreal firm, what he calls the « last breath to trigger time “, the last breath before shooting, which affects vision, and therefore shooting accuracy. “Breathing is fundamental, it promotes optimal concentration. During our training, we practice breathing, but also singing and meditation — and meditation is practiced well in India since it is already part of the culture. I had never done meditation with any other sports team, so teaching it to an Olympic team is the fun ! »
The shooters on his team will need this inner peace, as the competition in the shooting events is fierce, particularly from their Chinese neighbours, who have won 18 medals in the last two Games while India left empty-handed. “Foreign coaches who work with the Chinese shooting team have told me that they put the Indian flag on the targets to motivate the shooters,” says Pierre Beauchamp.
Do you think you can win a gold medal, Mr. Beauchamp? “My goals are higher than that: I want every athlete to surpass themselves, to set their personal best, to give their best. That will make me happy. And if the best they can give turns into medals, then that will be good. That said, according to the data analyzed by our software and the comparison of our performances with the performance of other shooters in competition, if everyone offers their personal best, we should win three medals.”
“I’m telling you this, but I’ll never say that to Indian journalists!” adds Pierre Beauchamp, laughing.