Olympics-Mind games of the victorious (This is the eighth and
last in a series of stories about the science behind the
Olympics to run daily this week. The full list will be updated
at ) By Sharon Begley NEW YORK, July 22 (Reuters) - For decades
after the first sports psychology lab was established in 1920 in
Germany, mental coaches have been the water boys of sports
science, viewed by their colleagues as not quite good enough to
make the first-string team. That has changed. Virtually every
top professional team and elite athlete has a psychologist on
speed dial for help conquering the yips - when stress makes
crucial muscles jerk and ruins, say, an archery shot - marshal
the power of visualization, or just muster the confidence that
can mean the difference between medaling or just muddling
through. But a more important reason for the improved reputation
of sports psychology is the solid science demonstrating the
effect of the mental game on athletic performance. A 2011 study,
for instance, examined U.S. Nati