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Pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroszczyk leaves his goggles on before stepping on the apparatus during the men's gymnastics pommel horse final at the Olympics on Saturday.
He stuck his landing, his feet right on the mat, he grabbed the second bronze Paris Games medal.
Nedoroski is not the only visually impaired Olympic athlete to excel in their sport. Irish swimmer Daniel Wiffen takes off his goggles before winning gold in the 800m freestyle on Tuesday. In the year Brazilian gymnast Rebecca Andrade, who won gold in the vault singles finals at the 2020 Tokyo Games and silver in the all-around on Thursday, said she couldn't see the apparatus that was hurting her at full speed.
Earlier this week Nedoroscik also He helped the American men's team. He snapped a 16-year team medal drought and won bronze in Monday's final. After his routine, he told reporters that he didn't need anything, even though he couldn't see himself getting on the horse.
“The thing about pommel horse is that you always use your hands,” Coy Wire told . “You're feeling how the center of your mass kind of rotates. i can't see you. I don't need to race to see what I'm doing…I'm doing it by feeling.”
as if Podcast “You can tell who a person is by the way they walk,” US national team soccer player Becky Sauerbrunn, who was released from prison on Friday, told Nedoroschik about her experience playing without corrective lenses.
And Paralympians like U.S. men's soccer captain Tyler Meren have been inspiring audiences for decades and performing amazing feats with partial or total vision loss. Although Meren has retinitis pigmentosa, a rare eye disease that has left him completely blind over time, he “doesn't feel blind” when he plays the sport, he told .
I don't think about[vision]when I'm in court. The picture looks like Technicolor because it's clear over my head and where the ball is.
Although every sport and athlete is unique, experts say there is a special mental science that helps athletes stay at the top of their game even when they can't see.
Your brain lends a helping hand
Nearsightedness has two conditions: strabismus, or misalignment of the eye, and coloboma, a loss of tissue in the eye. it has:: Posted About his eyes in social networks, he shows viewers how quickly he can change which eye is dominant.
Beyond visual clarity, such conditions can impair depth perception, a critical component of gymnastics and other Olympic sports, said Dr. Rupa Wong, a pediatric ophthalmologist at the Honolulu Eye Clinic and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
But for athletes competing with a variety of visual impairments, the brain can adjust to impaired visual input through a skill called neuroplasticity, which fills in the gaps.
Dr Gordon Waddington, professor of sport and exercise at the Canberra Institute of Sport and Exercise Research, said: “Neuroplasticity is when the brain can change from which channel it receives information from, increasing or decreasing. and the Australian Institute of Sport.
These “information channels” or systems in the body – namely touch, sight, hearing, proprioceptive and vestibular – allow a person to know his position in space. Because everyone is unique, we rely on different combinations and different strengths of these systems to create the most complete picture possible of our environment and our place in it.
As vision weakens, “they grow to rely on other senses like propriety,” Wong said. “i have [patients] You'd think that one-eyed people who are amazing baseball players, and would need super-acuity to be able to play baseball, but they don't. You can see the compensation and the way the brain is very plastic. Especially at a young age, the mind is constantly changing.
Appropriateness, sometimes It is counted The “sixth sense” is the awareness of your body's position and movement in space. According to Dr. Fabrice Sarlegna, who studies movement psychology and neuroscience at France's National Center for Scientific Research and Aix-Marseille University, it's the sense that allows us to feel and locate our body parts, and it's often confused with balance.
“We grew up thinking that we only had five senses and that vision was the dominant mind. … That's not right,” he said. “It's an idea that's about 2,000 years old. Aristotle was very smart, but 2,000 years later, we know there are more than five senses.” .
“Even if you can't see your foot, you know exactly where it is,” he adds, explaining how it is protected by receptors in your body that constantly communicate with your mind and vice versa.
In our daily lives, we use proprioception to do things like drink water, walk down the street, or perform simple movements such as closing your eyes to touch your nose with your finger.
Olympians and Paralympians also use a sense of belonging. When a gymnast flips and catches the bar, a swimmer flips a leg, or a soccer player passes the ball, they rely on constant visual guidance to coordinate their movements and execute the correct actions.
“Awareness of awareness, balance and coordination is huge for athletes,” Merren said.
That common sense means I can see when we're on court. Even without my eyes, everything is alive because I know where I am and I know where my teammates are.
Vision is a vital part of how Olympic athletes compete in their sport, but as vision declines, other senses take a step back, Serlegna says.
“When you lose one sense or have some impairment, the brain can compensate by improving the processing of other senses,” he said. “For visually impaired athletes, they may have better proprioception, a better vestibular system, or better hearing. It really depends.”
Strengthening these other senses is also a critical component of successful practice with imperfect vision. For example, through countless repetitions and practice, the mind can increase its focus on information coming in through other channels, creating an internal image that allows the athlete to perform a skill correctly without relying on absolute vision, Waddington explains.
“There is no way for an Olympian to be good at the sport. With eyes open and perfect 20/20 vision, it's not the only way we see individuals stand out. [They do so in] Many ways of relying on their other senses to compensate. I think it's really amazing,” Wong added.
For paralympians like Merren who have total vision loss, tapping into other body parts is especially important, and comes with a learning curve, especially with goalball.
Goalball was created in 1946 to rehabilitate veterans who lost their sight in World War II. Combining elements of handball and soccer, the game involves throwing a ball into a net secured by the opposing team to score points. The ball holds bells, and tape high on the floor helps players use hearing and touch to locate the ball and their position on the court. Although all players must be legally blind to compete – with less than 10 percent vision – all players wear blinders to ensure fair competition. International Paralympic Committee.
“We track the sound of the ball on the floor as we throw it back and forth,” Merren explained. “You can also hear the spacing of your players. When we move around, we generally know where everyone is and we use touch signals to know where we are on the floor.”
Athletes can use visual aids even when they cannot see. Studies Mental imagery has been shown to improve cognitive and physical performance for all types of athletes.
By tapping into the “sixth sense,” communication among teammates, planning and sports psychology all help visually impaired athletes paint a mental picture of their game in their head, Merren said.
“For athletes, it's all about vision, and you can have a lot of vision without vision. It's something we get used to. It's your mind that does the work, not your eyes,” he said. “Our sport is no different.” You remove the visual component, but the athlete is still missing. As the years go by, your mind will come together to create a wonderful picture.
Nedoroskyk also practices this visualization. Olympic bronze medalist A “Sleep Agent” Some were seen drawing out their routine with their eyes closed as they waited for their turn to compete in the team finals. He was too. Spotted During the Olympic qualifiers, he mentally walked through his pommel horse skills with his eyes closed, a routine that helped secure his spot on the 2024 team.
“It's a matter of visualizing the movements and feeling the movements,” Nedoroszczyk told . He visualizes the routine from start to finish, and even goes back and works through the problems in his mind.
“I'm going through the motions firing the same muscles because I know exactly how it feels each time,” he says.
“When you close your eyes, you can picture exactly how you want your body to move,” added Sarlegna, explaining that there are many “complexities” in the brain that translate these images into motor actions.
Visually impaired Olympic athletes have shown that you don't need 20/20 vision to get the job done. They serve as athletes Exemplary According to Wong, for children who have a similar situation to start in sports.
Nedoroskyk has been compared to Clark Kent, who transforms into a superhero when he takes off his glasses. One of the conditions, strabismus, It has also been reported According to researchers, behind the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, it allows the artist to perceive the world in a different way and facilitate the accurate depiction of three-dimensional objects on a flat surface.
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