IN ALPS CHEATING DEATH & ROPE TRICKS

In an interaction with Swaroop Swaminathan, mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton reveals tough routines undertaken in the run-up to the Olympics

PADDY Upton Mike Horn go back a long way. Upton, one of the foremost mental conditioning coaches in all of sport today, had seen how Horn had supplied fresh impetus to two of India's biggest sporting teams in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, Upton had invited Horn, a South Africa-Swiss explorer, for a session with the Indian Test team. A year later, Horn got a similar invite, this time to have a session with the white-ball side before the home World Cup.

Sometime later, Upton and Horn had a few days with the South African Test team in Switzerland ahead of a crunch series against England. After those few days in the mountains, South Africa's red-ball side won that series.

So, in the months leading up to the Paris Olympics, Horn had received a call from his good friend. A similar trip to the Alps would have to be arranged. The visitors? The Indian men's hockey team. While Horn understood the assignment, the Indian players, then, didn't have any idea of what would await them once they reached the Alps?

In simplistic terms, the exercise was to give a new perspective on pressure in the world of hockey as compared to pressure in the real world. "In one or two situations," Upton tells this daily, "if they got something wrong, it could have resulted in, erm, death.

"In hockey, you aren't seriously faced with death. You are faced with losing or, may be, at worse, an injury. When you actually face death, you realise the pressure you face in hockey isn't that big. It's not that bad in the context of life. That's knew would be one of the biggest advantages of Switzerland. They got a different perspective."