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the
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WINTER 2011
leaders
THE
Dr Steve Peters
One of the men behind British Cycling’s phenomenal success in recent years explains
how he’s helping to keep the wheels spinning… without reinventing them
words
ciarÁn brennan
To say that
British Cycling
enjoyed a successful Olympics at
Beijing 2008 is a little like saying Sir
Alex Ferguson has done reasonably
well at Manchester United; the
nation’s ‘spokes-people’ contributed
eight gold medals to Team GB’s total
haul of 19, making it the single most
successful part of the most successful
UK Olympics team of all time.
There are many reasons put forward
to explain this success: the clever
apportioning of increased budget
resources to a sport where funding can
make a real difference and the talents
of the team’s performance director
Dave Brailsford being just two.
However, one factor which certainly
contributed to that extraordinary
success story was the appointment
of psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters to the
team’s support staff. While sports
psychologists are legion, Peters is
probably the only current practitioner
in the field of sports psychiatry. His
work with the British cyclists has been
widely praised, particularly by those
who directly felt its benefits (including
gold medallists Sir Chris Hoy, Bradley
Wiggins and Victoria Pendleton) but
Peters is quick to point out that he’s
just one small cog in a large (and well
functioning) machine.
“Some people attributed the
[Olympics 2008] success to me, saying
that I was the missing factor, but that’s
just ridiculous,” says Peters. “I can
optimise function in certain people,
but I can’t put the talent into the
athletes and I can’t coach them. My
contribution is that I can sometimes
add the missing piece of the jigsaw.
We had an amazing coaching team
and myself and the rest of the medical
team were there to clear the barriers
and let them get on with their jobs.”
So what exactly is the difference
between a sports psychiatrist and a
sports psychologist? According to
Peters, the difference is very clear. “I’m
a doctor who works with the brain,”
he says. If I were a cardiologist, people
would know immediately that I’m
a doctor who works with the heart;
well, I do exactly the same, but with
chemicals are going to be released,”
he says. “The expectations might be
slightly different, but the way they
deal with them will be more or less
the same. I knew that I could translate
my work with medical students to this
new field, but what I had to do was
learn the nuances of sport.”
And sport, it seems, has many
nuances. Even within cycling there
are different ways of working. “There’s
a culture within, say, the BMX team
that’s not present on the track,” says
Peters. “You have to tune in to those
cultures, otherwise you can’t function
properly. What I could never do is
bring in my own ideas and impose
them... that would never work.”
What does work, according to
Peters, is the application of classic
psychiatry techniques. “I’m not
inventing something here,” he says.
“My expertise and knowledge is
limited… I’m just one person coming
in to an enormous field. I try to
remain invisible and help the athlete
to get to where they want to get to.”
Although his work is, by nature,
personal to each athlete, Peters sees a
common thread among his subjects.
“You do get recurring themes;
‘competition anxiety’ being the most
common,” he says. “Athletes come
to me and say that they do all of this
training and when they come to the
moment of truth they find themselves
‘choking’. They ask if I can remove
that and my answer is usually ‘yes’.”
It’s possible that one of the reasons
that Peters enjoys such success with
athletes is that his interest is more
than just academic. Despite the fact
“I teach
athletes to
manage
their minds
the way they
manage their
bodies’”
the brain. I look at neurotransmitter
systems and neuroanatomy…
basically looking to see if the brain is
functioning well. Sports psychologists,
on the other hand, work to optimise
performance.”
Peters brings a wealth of experience
from his 20 years with the NHS to
his work in sport; not just from his
clinical casework, but also in the
techniques he acquired when training
junior medical staff. “It doesn’t matter
if you’ve got a footballer who’s about
to take a penalty kick or a student
who’s taking an exam… the same