Evaluation of different pre-competition stress levels felt by elite and non-elite judo athletes and ways of overcoming it

Research objective – determine the stress levels felt pre-competition by elite and non-elite judo athletes and the ways of relieving it. Observational range: 48 athletes, aged from 15 to 31, 22 of whom are elites and 26 who are not. Methodology: literary analysis, questionnaire, mathematical statistics SPSS 24.0 Research aims: 1. Determine stress levels felt before a competition by elite and non-elite judo athletes. 2. Determine elite and non-elite athletes’ resistance to pre-competition stress. 3. Determine the ways elite and non-elite athletes relieve stress. Results: Elite athletes stress level is lower than the non-elite, but the results are not statistically significant (p> 0.05). Elite athletes have high resistance to stress (10.43), rather than non-elite judo athletes - average resistance to stress (8.9). Among these groups established a statistically significant difference (p 0.05). Findings Elite judo athletes have a better understanding of stress and better knowledge of how to deal with it pre-competition. In our opinion, non-elite judo athletes have a lesser resistance to stress due to lack of experience and smaller number of competitions, while elite athletes also get special consultations on stress relief and non-elite athletes do not get help from sport psychologists. Even though no substantial differences have been noticed, it seems that non-elite judo athletes feel more pre-competition stress than elite athletes