Watching the Olympic Games on television has spurred many Australian children over the years to dream of achieving medal-winning success on the international sporting field – and many have gone on to succeed.
It’s a phenomenon experienced across the globe, but no more so than in Australia where sport is such a big part of the national identity.
That’s according to CQUniversity’s recently appointed Senior Lecturer in Psychology and former sport psychologist for the Brazilian Olympic Committee during the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, Dr Alberto Filgueiras.
“Children learn mostly from behavioural models, meaning they tend to copy the behaviours of people they have affection to or admire,” Filgueiras says.
“It tends to start with parents and family watching the Olympics, showing their appreciation and positive attitudes towards the athletes. Then, children start copying in early ages until they also have emotional attachment to the event, which leads to the attempt of seeing themselves as part of the Olympics.”
Watching can lead to doing
In fact, latest research by sports brand ASICS, the official uniform partner of the Australian Olympic Team, has shown a clear correlation between watching the Games and having ambitions of participating.
The study revealed one in six dreamt of going to the Olympic Games after watching Australia compete on the world stage and two-thirds were motivated to try a new sport.
Filgueiras says that, when you add Australia’s deep connection with sport into the mix, this trend is amplified for young Aussies.
Filgueiras has lived in four different countries, worked with 200 client-athletes, from world champions to Olympic medallists, from 13 different nationalities, and has found Australians to be amongst the most proud of being a sports nation.
“Australians have created a strong bond with sports, it’s a part of the country’s identity,” he says.
“You can observe this phenomenon in schools, among families, when people are playing in their local fields or parks on the weekend. Even at barbecues, there is always someone holding a ball or throwing something around.”
The insights Filgueiras has shared with EducationDaily stem from a lifetime of experience in the field as a psychologist with Masters’ and PhD degrees in developmental and cognitive neuroscience with post-doctorates in Sport Sciences and Physical Education.
He is a registered sport psychologist in Brazil with four books published in this field and has also worked as a sport psychologist for Flamengo, Brazil’s biggest soccer club, between 2018 and 2019. Currently, in addition to sharing his expertise with CQUniversity students and colleagues, he works remotely for Team Octagon, a Brazilian MMA team with athletes who fight in Bellator and the UFC. His current research interests include Decision Making to improve Sport Performance.
Celebrating sports culture can be a pathway to sporting success
Filgueiras believes Australia has become a massive sports nation because families value sport participation and that has created an emotional and generational bond that is hard to break.
He says that, while finding Olympic talent is hard, at the end of the day, it is about quantity first, then quality.
“If you have a country such as Australia where most people practice sports, you increase the likelihood of finding sport talent.”
Interestingly, Australia is ranked 13th in medals per capita in the history of the Summer Olympics, but number one for countries with more than 10 million people.
“To be physically active is to be healthier,” Filgueiras told EducationDaily.
“In life such as ours right now, with a lot of cell phones and screens in the lives of our kids, if parents can get them watching sport, it can motivate them to try new things themselves.”
But, he says, encouraging kids to get sporty does need to be supported by conversations that manage realistic – and safe – expectations.
“When kids watch a professional athlete doing something great, they think they can do the same – and that can be frustrating for them when they try to, and they don’t succeed. It can also see kids dropping out of sporting participation.”
Sporting clubs play a pivotal educational role
He told EducationDaily it’s why inviting professional practitioners to teach kids to be part of community-centric sport, as part of school teams or local sporting clubs is so important.
Filgueiras has concerns about the trend of pushy parents hiring personal trainers and sports coaches to work with young children individually – driven by a goal to push them to outperform themselves at each session, without being part of the other learning benefits that come from progressing through sporting achievements more organically.
“Professional practitioners are trained to show children they can do great things if they have enough discipline to endure and persist in these sports,” Filgueiras told EducationDaily.
“It’s why community teams are really important in this context. They are the ones who can show kids what they can achieve if they keep trying. When kids who are 11 or 12 can see older kids of 13 or 14 succeeding, they learn to appreciate the right steps you need to progress to the next level. And the same goes for kids of 13 or 14 being able to watch older kids in the club – like 17 or 18-year-olds.”
Simply watching the Olympics with children isn’t enough to make young people perform like gold medal-winning sporting superstars, he says, but it is a powerful way to create conversations about what it takes to get to that level.
“Creating those conversations can be the first steps to amazing things.”
