When it comes to discussing the mental mindset of an athlete, one story comes to mind – and many people know the story by its hit movie title ‘Cool Runnings’.
Over one billion people watched Dudley Tal Stokes and his team crash out of the Olympic Games in 1988 in Calgary. A crash that happened at 80mph, resulted in the team’s helmets dragging along the wall of the run for over 2,000ft. Many people remember the team walking alongside their sled with overwhelming applause from the onlookers and fellow teams competing.
But how did the Olympians get past this?
For a person who had been a high-flyer his whole life, the outcome was extremely devastating. Dudley, a graduate of the RMA Sandhurst and a Pilot in the elite Jamaica Defence Force Air Wing – was recognised as someone who had a winner’s mentality.
Dudley had taken on the challenge of building the first Winter Sport Team from Jamaica and did not expect to fail – especially so publicly. The crash hit him badly, physically, and mentally, but instead of getting down and letting the feat get on top of him – he got back up and carried on with the sport that he had grown to love.
Ultimately, six years after the 1988 games, the Jamaican bobsleigh team became the 10th best team in the world – hard work and an athlete mindset paid off. Dudley did, however, take the failure very personally and chose to discuss the many mitigating circumstances, but he could have easily slipped down a rocky road full of depression and reflection.
Dudley commented: “I knew I only had one way to go, and that was to become a competitive bobsleigh athlete. So, I quickly adopted the mantra, ‘be ruthless, relentless, resolute, and remorseless’ – and that’s exactly what I did. I overcame the defeat, and instead reflected on all the hard work that myself and the team had put into getting Jamaica at the Winter Olympics instead.”
The team had aroused a great amount of interest by this point, and excitement for the Jamaican team that overcame their first failure inspired the massive blockbuster feature movie – Cool Runnings.
Dudley continued: “Mental health cannot be separated from physical health; your brain is an organ in your body and is heavily dependent on other organs (like the gut) to produce the substances it needs to function properly. Your body must work for mental health too.
“Athletes deliberately stress their bodies for performance. Elite athletics is not healthy, only made worse if performance-enhancing substances are used. Athletes must pay close attention to recovery, to rebalance the body so that the mind can work to its best healthy ability too.
“Before every race, I would remind myself that no matter the outcome, my mother and wife would still love me – and that’s what a professional athlete has to do to not only protect their mental health but also acceptance of coming second, third, fourth, and so.”
Dudley has since personally competed in two more Olympic Games, and the Jamaican bobsleigh team were 14th sled overall in the Lillehammer Norway games in 1994, beating all the American sleds.
Following his change of Olympic mindset, Dudley has been hugely successful in business. His first company ‘Helitours’ was Jamaica’s first helicopter tour company, and he later went on to found ‘AmLoG’, which became Jamaica’s largest logistics business. Dudley now also coaches and mentors fellow aspiring bobsleigh athletes and hopes to encourage a new generation to not only go for their dreams but protect their mental mindset at all costs too.
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