Episode Five – On Sports Superstitions
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Sport is an integral part of popular culture – heritage, sense of national identity and an almost religious relevance in the discussions of fans when they talk about their favourite team. It’s unavoidable for reports about top athletes and sporting heroes to include a few ‘so, what helps you make it this far?’. Naturally, that will include superstitious behaviours that this profession seems to develop! The popularity of sport combined with the fact that its participants are a traditionally superstitious group – make athletes the most famous of all superstitious people.
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Some of the “traditions” of sportspeople are actually about getting the person in the right frame of mind to get the best out of their performance. This is often mistaken as or falsely claimed to be a superstition. That said, a lot (dare I say majority) of the time it is superstition pure and simple.
Absolutely, Bastard Sheep – you’ll hear me discuss that about how the older and younger athletes at the Australian Institute of Sport had quite different tales about what their behaviours were like and the reasoning behind them!