why do some athletes seem to be one step ahead of their opponents?

With less than 30 seconds remaining in the Australia-Belgium women’s basketball bronze medal game at the Paris Olympics, Belgium was trailing by three points and on the attack, advancing the ball to a player for what seemed an uncontested three-point shot to tie the game.

Then the Opals’ Steph Talbot made a spectacular individual play to block the shot and disrupt Belgium’s late surge for the bronze medal.

Later, when asked about the play, Talbot said:

From the moment the ball was passed, in my mind, I knew I could get to her. And I knew I could block the shot. It was just something in my mind, I knew I could get it […] and I did.

Given this first-hand account, one might ask: how does the brain operate to enable athletes like Talbot to anticipate plays?

Anticipation in sports

In sports, anticipation is commonly viewed as an important but somewhat elusive skill.

Some believe you either have it or you don’t – and all the great athletes have it.

Consequently, the athletes who do have it are often revered as “having great instincts,” “a knack for being in the right place at the right time,” and “an ability to read the game”.

In support of this perspective, research has revealed skilled athletes typically pay attention to contextual cues, recognise patterns, distinguish between important and unimportant sensory information, and forecast future outcomes quicker and more accurately than less skilled athletes.

However, these factors only tell part of the anticipation story.

New evidence increasingly reveals the important role of the brain’s predictive processes in anticipating outcomes in sports.

In fact, as prominent neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett points out in the clip below, in dynamic and fast-paced sporting contexts, the action happens so quickly that if athletes did not predict, they would not be able to hit a fastball in baseball, or return a booming first-serve in tennis, or save a goal in a soccer penalty shootout.

Recent evidence suggests anticipation in sports does not happen in an infrequent or ad-hoc manner.

Instead, athletes continuously make and refine predictions about what is likely to occur. They do this by integrating what they see, hear, and feel with their knowledge about the sporting environment and how they operate within it.

In situations where the prediction aligns with what is actually happening, athletes can confidently continue their anticipated course of action with minimal extra effort required.

If, however, a mismatch between the prediction and actual events is detected, athletes are forced to update their prediction and change their course of action, which can feel like it takes more effort.

Read more: Science is just starting to understand the benefits of athletes putting their brains in ‘auto pilot’

Looking at Talbot’s block shot through this predictive lens, it’s likely, given the context of the game (Belgium being three points down) and the positioning of the players on the court (a Belgian player unguarded at the three-point line), that Talbot predicted the pass would go to the unguarded player.

Given her past experiences, it is likely Talbot also predicted she would be able to get to the player and contest the shot.

In each subsequent moment of play, the incoming sensory information (such as the speed and direction of the pass and the opponent preparing to shoot) aligned with Talbot’s predictions.

This made the process of anticipating and executing the play feel comparatively easy – like it was something she knew she could do.

Developing anticipation skills

For those who wish to help develop athletic anticipation skills, a few aspects of the brain’s predictive processes are particularly important to know.

First, the brain has the capacity to dial-in or tune-out specific sensory information. For example, how to pay attention to the ball while blocking out possible distractors (such as an opponent’s actions or comments).

Therefore, it is beneficial for athletes to learn (through practice, direct instruction, or questioning) what is important and unimportant information to pay attention to in different situations.

Doing so allows athletes to quickly dial into important contextual cues in the environment when they occur.

Second, the brain has the ability to recognise and understand the possible cause-and-effect relationships that exist in sporting environments. An example might be the direction an opponent moves when they press their foot into the ground in a certain way.

Accordingly, it is advantageous for athletes to develop an understanding (via practice and reflecting on performance) of what is likely to happen when specific events occur.

Doing so helps them better recognise the patterns of play that commonly happen in their sports.

Third, the brain uses prediction errors to learn how the sporting environment operates. An example of this is acquiring a better understanding of how the wind affects performance based on prior misjudgements.

So experiencing mismatches between predictions and actual events should not be viewed negatively, as a problem to be punished. Rather, it is an opportunity to refine one’s understanding.

By encouraging athletes to try (and sometimes fail) to predict performance outcomes, they become better positioned to make quicker and more accurate anticipatory judgements in the future.

A skill that can be improved

While anticipation in sports is often seen as an attribute only some athletes possess, research suggests almost all athletes have the skill and use it every day.

So attaining a greater grasp of the predictive processes of the brain provides unique opportunities to support athletes in becoming skilled anticipators.

In particular, to help athletes stay one step ahead of their opponent, it is beneficial to allow athletes to learn what is likely to occur through trial-and-error play, supported by conversations about what they notice and what that information means in the context of their sport.