Choking (Sports)

In sports, choking is the failure of an athlete or a team to perform as well as expected, most often in a contest they are strongly favored to win or after they have built a large lead they then squander late in the event. Most athletes undergo physical and mental changes under increased competitive tension, sometimes shifting to a more cautious strategy as a coping mechanism, and when that coping strategy fails, a player or team can lose confidence to the point of panic, becoming unable to complete even routine tasks, a pattern that can be understood as a form of analysis paralysis. The term is applied loosely, and sometimes unfairly, in sports commentary, and its opposite is described as being clutch.