Abstract

The ability to cope with competitive stress is an important task of each athlete during sport competitions. Acute stress is inevitable in the professional sport. If competitive stress coping is not effective, it is associated with the failure in the contest and in the professional career. Inappropriate coping and failure in the competition can have negatives outcomes for health of athlete, his wellbeing, social working. The purposes of this investigation were to examine relationships between perceived competitive stress, sources of stress, coping style and sport performance. The results of this research help to form a clear view of effective coping strategy and help to make a good athletes training programs. In this study there are reported the results of athletes that were participating in 2011 Lithuanian Athletics Championships of Youth. 116 athletes (60 men and 56 women), age range 17-21 years participated in this research. The participants were competing in the track and field events. In this study there was made and applied questioning, which consists of four parts: Questioning of Sources of Perceived Competitive Stress, Athletes’ Perceived Competitive Stress Scale, Athletes’ Coping Strategies Scale, Questioning of Competition Performances. The results of this study showed the tendency that athletes who contain the internal source of perceived competitive stress have a higher level of perceived stress, while exterior source is associated with lower level of perceived stress. However, a statistically significant difference of these groups was not found. The first supposition about links between level of stress and sources of stress is not proved. Moreover, there was found the tendency that athletes who have approach-behavior and avoidant-behavior coping strategies in competition are distinguished by the higher mean of perceived stress assessment, while approach-cognitive and avoidant-cognitive strategies are associated with the lower mean of perceived stress assessment. However, a statistically significant difference of these groups was not found. The second supposition about links between coping strategies and level of stress is not proved. The study have shown that the higher level of perceived stress is associated with superior results of competitions. Statistically significant differences were found: in the group with superior results of competitions and in the group in which the result of athlete is the same like his better personal result; in the group in which the personal result of athlete is superior and worse than his personal result; and in the groups, in which athlete’s result is the same like his better personal result and worse than his personal result. The third supposition that sportive achievement is associated with level of perceived stress is proved. Better achievements are associated with higher level of stress, and worse – with lower. The studies have shown that is no statistically significant interaction of the groups of competition results and coping strategy. Moreover, there was found the tendency that the strength of perceived stress is link with competition results and with athlete coping strategy. Perceived intense stress and approachbehavior, avoidant-cognitive coping strategies are associated with superior competitive results of athlete; perceived low stress and avoidant-behavior coping strategy is associated with worse competitive results of athlete. The fourth supposition about links between sportive achievements, coping strategies of stress and level of stress is not proved. Verf.-Referat