A new study suggests that the key to being a great athlete could be down to mental and not just athletic performance, and a positive attitude towards the sport and training.

To investigate why some become champions while others fail to make the grade, a team of researchers from the University of Central Lancashire, UK, interviewed 54 athletes from a variety of different sports including soccer, rowing, skiing, and karate and boxing.

To find distinguishing characteristics between participants that set apart the great, the good, and those who weren't quite good enough, the researchers interviewed the athletes about their career path so far, any challenges they had faced, their reactions to these challenges, commitment to the sport and their relationships with both their coaches and family.

The athlete's answers showed that it was those who demonstrated an internal drive, motivation and commitment that achieved greatness, qualities that their ‘almost great' peers lacked. They also pushed themselves harder, with those who always strived for better actually becoming better. Athletes in this group also didn't let setbacks such as injury demotivate them, and instead came back from failures more determined than ever.

Those who were 'almost' great, however, avoided taking on more challenging training exercises which would push them further towards greatness, and let failures and setbacks knock their motivation and enthusiasm for their sport.

And it wasn't because the 'almost' great faced more challenges that they failed to make it, with the responses showing that when it came to career setbacks there was little variation in either the number or nature of challenges faced by each participant. What made the difference was their attitude towards these challenges, rather than the amount encountered.

Commenting on the results, Professor Dave Collins, lead author of the study, said, "We've found that there are universal psychological characteristics amongst those who are aspiring to get to the top. We have a good idea of what makes people excellent and how we can help them reach peak performance."

Collins now believes the results could be used by coaches to help train athletes, and that the results could also be applicable to performance in other areas such as music.

The results were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.