Daily Times

Increased heart rate was more likely to reduce the performance of lower-ranking archers and of all archers who shot second in a match or who had a lower score than their opponent at that point in the match. Not only did the 2020 Tokyo Olympics take place during the COVID-19 epidemic, but it was also the first athletic event to measure and broadcast competitors’ heart rates while world-class archers competed for Olympic gold. Yunfeng Lu (Nanjing University) and Songfa Zhong (the National University of Singapore, New York University Abu Dhabi) published an analysis of these biometric data in Psychological Science, providing empirical support for what sports fans have long suspected: When athletes are under pressure, their performance suffers. “We found that high contactless real-time heart rate is associated with poor performance,” said Lu and Zhong in an interview. “This suggests that even the best professional athletes are negatively influenced by psychological stress, even though they are generally well trained to cope with pressure.”