comparison of the psychological skills of Iranian and world male fencers

Recently, the matter of the influence of mental skills on sports skills performance has become very important. The current research aimed to evaluate and compare the mental preparation of the male fencers of the Iranian national team and the elite male fencers of the world.

The current research method was experimental. The statistical population of this research included the fencers of the national teams of Iran, Hungary, America, Russia, France, and Ukraine. The research samples were 58 fencers from selected countries. To measure the mental skills of fencers, the original version of the Ottawa Mental Skills Assessment Tool (OMSAT-3) questionnaire was used. To compare the mental skills of athletes from different countries, the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and Bonferroni's post hoc test were used.

The results showed that all elite male fencers achieved the highest scores in foundation mental skills including self-confidence, goal setting, and commitment, and the lowest scores were related to refocusing, focusing, and stress control skills. Also, the highest and the lowest scores of mental skills in this research were related to self-confidence and refocusing skills, respectively. Russian fencers scored the highest in all mental skills and Iranian fencers scored the lowest in the stress control skill.

Based on the results of the research, fencers have less proficiency in two sub-skills of cognitive psychological and psychosomatic skills compared with the foundation mental skills. The fencers had lower strength in terms of the mental skill of focusing, refocusing, and stress control. Iranian and non-Iranian fencers were weaker in mental skills of stress control and refocusing.