Mental coach Thomas Baschab prepares biathlete Simon Schempp for the mass start with an SMS - and in doing so, he unlocks a mental block in the mind of the Uhinger. It was a long journey to the world championship title.
Curses in sports can be a tricky thing. Just ask the fans of Benfica Lisbon - the so-called Guttmann Curse, pronounced by the dismissed coach in 1962, prevents the football club from winning a European cup for 100 years. No curse had been imposed on Simon Schempp, yet it was somehow astonishing that the best German biathlete simply couldn't manage to add an individual medal to his seven team plaques. Until last Sunday. That's when the Uhinger became world champion in the mass start and felt relieved of a heavy burden. "Of course, I waited a long time for this day, and now it has finally arrived," rejoiced the 28-year-old in Hochfilzen.
Long, personal message from mental coach Thomas Baschab
A share of this success belongs to Thomas Baschab. The man has been the mental trainer of the biathlete for a year and a half, and he had sent him an SMS the day before the mass start to prepare Schempp for the competition. "It was up to me whether I read it or not. I read it several times. Each time, it made me smile, and that's how I went into the race feeling fresher in my mind," recounted the double world champion. Neither the biathlete nor the mental coach revealed exactly what was in the message. "It was a very long, very personal SMS," emphasized Thomas Baschab. The 56-year-old and Schempp have known each other since the summer of 2016. They talk face to face two to three times a year, usually over the phone. It involves techniques and methods with which the athlete can have an immediate, simple, and quick impact on performance. On the rest day of the World Championships, a week ago on Monday, the biathlete had visited Baschab to get a few more tips. "It's not just about shooting better, as laymen often assume," says the man from Weilheim in Bavaria, "but also about running."
Running feeling can also be influenced
Baschab explains that someone who wants too much, who is overmotivated, has too much tension in the body and therefore tires quickly. "You can mentally influence the feeling of running," he says, "that is, the daily form." In Schempp's case, the task was quite tricky because the curse of individual medals had to be banished from his mind. "Shooting in biathlon is one of the most demanding things in sports," emphasizes Baschab. Body control and mental freedom must work together - then there are external influences like sun, wind, weather, and last but not least, the fans. "What do you think," asks the mental trainer, "what goes through a biathlete's mind when the shot misses, and 20,000 people go: Oooooh?" These are situations that need to be mentally managed. Simon Schempp often got in his own way because he wanted to do everything particularly well, particularly precisely; because he demanded everything and a little more from himself. Because of this, he sometimes became completely tense. "Simon was successful," says Baschab, "this is evidenced by his perfection: that he sought a mental coach to improve himself even further." In Simon Schempp's case, working with the mental coach was a piece of the puzzle in the work of everyone in the biathlete's team to overcome the curse. This SMS should never be deleted by Schempp.
