Some in the US are unhappy about the Winter Olympics.  More medals were expected, more gold medals.  Bode Miller has become the poster boy for high-level athletic underachievement.  I am not personally upset by this: there were plenty of great moments, regardless of nation.  The short-track speed skating relays were wild.  And the final period of the Russian-Czech hockey game was marvelous.  The Russians passed beautifully in a losing effort.  It reminded me of when the Soviet national team played against the NHL for the first time in about 1975; the Russian style was so much more fluid and dynamic than the North American. 

    In any event, the general disappointment, at least among the sports punditry, inspired the NYT to run a story today on the psychology of losing big competitions.  A problem for elite level athletes, it seems, is thinking too much:

In studies of golfers and soccer players, Sian Beilock, a psychologist
at the University of Chicago, has shown that elite athletes perform
superbly when distracted but begin to make mistakes as soon as they are
told to pay more attention to their movements. "I think what happens in
high pressure situations is that the athletes start paying attention to
things they’re not used to thinking about at all," she said. The
result, she said, is that in these stressful situations "they can feel
as if they are performing a different skill."

     If you think too much about what you are doing, you will not do it as well.   The ideal is to achieve a "flat-line mental state," which is difficult.  It is also something Taoists have sought for centuries.

     Here’s passage 56 from the Tao Te Ching:

Those who know don’t talk,
and those who talk don’t know.

Block the senses
and close the mind,
blunt edges,
loosen tangles,
soften glare,
mingle dust:

this is called dark-enigma union.

It can’t be embraced
and can’t be ignored,
can’t be enhanced
and can’t be harmed,
can’t be treasured
and can’t be despised,

for it’s the treasure of all beneath heaven.

    This is generally understood to be a description of meditation.  But it sure sounds like what athletes describe as "being in the zone."  And it’s fair to say that Bode Miller could have used a bit more "dark-enigma union."   Maybe Apolo Anton Ohno found it in his last race.