Optimal sports performance depends on physical and psychological components. Often,  micro-seconds and millimetres are decisive factors between success or failure. When athletes, especially top performers of similar physical ability, have reached their optimal physical limits, the only difference for their success could depend on psychological components. One assumes that the competitor with greater control over his or her mind will emerge as the victor.

 

Mentally tough performers have the ability to bounce back from stressful experiences, such as competitive sport, quickly and effectively. Such an outcome is likely to be facilitated by athletes’ possession of relatively enduring characteristics; for example, optimism, hardiness, and positive affectivity are highly desirable dispositional tendencies that can predispose a situation-specific response. When confronting a challenge, individuals high in optimism, hardiness, and positive affectivity tend to approach it with confidence and persistence .  Such persons feel engaged in, and feel they have influence over, whatever they are doing, deriving positive emotions from their involvement.

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The Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ) is used to measure mental toughness. The SMTQ is a 14 item self-report questionnaire that yields a total mental toughness score, as well as scores on three subscales: confidence; constancy; and control. Responses to each item are indicated along a four-point Likert-type scale anchored by "not at all true" and "very true". Higher scores are indicative of higher levels of mental toughness sometimes true (2), often true (3), and very true nearly all of the time (4)).

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