Confidence, Concentration, and Competitive Performance of Elite Athletes: A Natural Experiment in Olympic Gymnastics

During the women's all-around gymnastics final at the 2000 Olympics, the vault was inadvertently set 5 cm too low for a random half of the 36 gymnasts. The error was widely viewed as undermining their confidence and adversely affecting their subsequent performance. This paper examines whether the vault problem had such a carryover effect. Both pretest scores (from preliminary rounds) and posttest scores (from the final) are available on vault, bars, beam. and floor. Manipulation checks establish that the error had experimental impact on vault performance. However, from comparing means, from analysis of covariance, from multiple regression, and from statistically adjusting the official scores, it is clear that the vault error had little if any effect on later performances or on the final standings. Elite athletes in a closed-skill sport apparently learn to concentrate so well that most can recover from a mishap and refocus successfully for the next effort.