Meet the woman who has created a winning mindset among Australia’s Olympic swim squad

THE Australian swim team’s secret weapon is a sports psychologist who has armed our medal prospects with all the mental tools required to become a champion.

Australian Swim team psychologist Georgia Ridler has been central to a shift in team culture.

MEET the Australian swim team’s secret weapon — the woman who has transformed the mind of every Dolphin so they’re armed with all the tools required to become an Olympic success.

Georgia Ridler is the swim team sports psychologist and after the Australians inexplicably decided to not take an expert in that field to the London Olympics four years ago, the Dolphins have had her in every team ever since.

It was an obvious mistake that compounded Australia’s worst Olympic swimming performance in several Games and the introduction of Ridler in 2013 has been crucial to the rebuilding of the Dolphins team culture.

Ridler does everything from organise team building exercises to conduct sleeping exercises and talk one-on-one with athletes. She is a mentor, mind coach and confidante.

World champions such as Emily Seebohm credit Ridler with helping strengthen her mind with many swimmers using her services weekly and not just in the team environment.

The role of the swim team psych has gone from fixing the mind to training the mind.

“I guess the role of the psychologist in the team now has become proactive and really positive,” Ridler said.

“I think the old stigma of psych was if you’ve got a problem send them to the shrink. The coaches on this team don’t see it that way now, I think over the last three years now we’ve built up that philosophy that psychology is about proactive performance enhancement, not so much a treatment model.

“When athletes are behind the block at a major competition it’s not their feet that will stop kicking (it’s their brain).

“I’ve seen a change over the years of athletes having their own consultations locally in Australia before even coming to major events which I think is a shift.”

Crucial to Ridler’s coaching is the “quiet mind sessions” she conducts every second day. Aimed to help athletes switch off their brains, all are given MP3 scripts to download so they can access the tool whenever they need to rest.

“Really it’s just about reducing that sympathetic nervous system, bringing everything down a little bit so they can relax and get into a good night’s sleep,” she said.

“We typically integrate progressive muscle relaxation. If you can start to relax the body the mind starts to catch up and realise we’re reducing tension here and maybe it is safe and time to let go.

“The body won’t switch off unless the brain knows I’m safe, otherwise we’re on alert.”

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Building team unity has been vitally important according to Ridler. Most activities are aimed to break down barriers such as “date night” where swimmers drew names to take to dinner and simply talk.

“We have values, team building and then we connect with our past. They’re the three stepping stones (of team culture) and it won’t stop,” she said.

“We’re not a football team, we’re a group of people who get together once or twice a year.

“We’ve got two or three weeks to get people on board … if people understand more about each other and build trust, there is a greater chance of them working together.

“I’ve seen a major shift I think over the last three years based on building that culture strategy rather than just saying let’s do an activity, we’ve got a purpose and a vision behind it.”

Originally published as Meet the woman who has created a winning mindset among Australia’s Olympic swim squad