China's top athletes will soon be able to turn to experts to ensure they are in the best of mental health as they prepare for the Beijing Olympics.

The country's first sports psychology website, specially designed for Chinese Olympians and their coaches, will offer multimedia materials on sports psychology and interactive communication tools between users and mental health experts.

An athlete undergoes physical tests, the results of which will be analyzed by psychological consultants. Guo Yingguang

In addition to online communication on the BBS, athletes and coaches can choose their own favorite psychologist to deal with their problems off-line.

"We have almost finished the trial period and it will serve our athletes soon," Zhang Zhongqiu, leader of the country's Olympic psychological consulting team, told China Daily.

The consulting squad was set up just before the 2004 Athens Games and the newly reshuffled group includes 22 experts from leading local institutes, including the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Department of Psychology at Beijing Normal University.

Those athletes who have already booked their places at the Beijing Games and their coaches can now log onto the website, according to Zhang.

The website has a very detailed database for every Chinese Olympian. "In order to protect the privacy of the athletes, the website uses a very advanced security system, similar to what banks use for VIP customers," Zhang, China's first sports psychologist, said.

"At any time, any place, athletes can download our materials to their mobile phones, send text messages to experts, or make reservations for consultation," he said.

Thanks to help from the psychology squad at the 2004 Athens Games, China finished second to the United States on the medal tally with 32 golds, its best performance to date. Now the whole world is waiting to see if it can eclipse main rivals the US and Russia to take the lead on home turf this summer.

"For Chinese athletes, the home advantage is obvious at the 2008 Beijing Games, but on the flip side, they are in such close proximity to their families and friends that they feel much pressure to succeed," Zhang warned.

Some, like Olympic and world hurdles champion Liu Xiang, are willing to train overseas in order to avoid precisely this.

In recent years, a lot of money has gone into sports psychology studies to safeguard athletes' mental health.

"The investment is unprecedented as the sports authorities know how greatly the mental factor will influence athletes' performance," Zhang said.

Zhang's sports psychology lab at the China Institute of Sport Science is armed with world-class equipment. It offers counseling to 18 national teams, including techniques such as somato-sensory music regulation, a new acoustic therapy to help ease stress.

The lab also hosts lectures and workshops for coaches who play a key role in athletes' training and competition.

"Coaches are the most important people for athletes and they should help athletes and their parents deal with the stress and pressure," Zhang said.

"Only through the coaches can our words work on the athletes. Fortunately, more and more Chinese coaches realize the importance of mental health.

(China Daily February 23, 2008)