Strategies of coping with stress and the sport results of alpine skiers and tennis players

Study aim: The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between strategies of coping with stress caused by participating in sport competitions and the results of those competitions, as well as to differentiate the applied coping strategies according to the practiced sport discipline (tennis and alpine skiing).

Material and methods: The study encompassed 83 university students (39 women and 44 men) who were participating in the Polish University Championships in tennis (n = 32) and alpine skiing (n = 51). The research was based on the Coping Inventory for Competitive Sports (CICS) questionnaire and was adapted to Polish conditions by the authors of this study. The results achieved during the competition were also recorded during the study.

Results: Possibly due to the nature of their sport, the tennis players used coping actions to a greater extent than the alpine skiers, regardless of the nature of the action. The application of task-focused strategies and the lower use of emotion-focused and avoidance strategies allowed the athletes to achieve higher results during the competition.

Conclusions: Task-focused strategies should be developed in order to improve the competitive results of athletes. Taking the situational nature of the coping strategies into consideration, coping strategies can be designed and modified to improve the achieved results.