24-05-2025
Misha Botting on being inside the minds of Scotland's best
34 years on from leaving his country of birth and on the verge of closing one of the most significant chapters in his life, Botting is reflecting on a journey that is as fascinating as it is unique, and is contemplating how he rose to become one of this country's preeminent sports psychologists.
Having grown up in Moscow, Botting's talents lay in ballet, becoming a dancer with the renowned Bolshoi Ballet Academy. On relocating to Scotland, Botting joined Scottish Ballet, with which he danced for five years before his days as a dancer came to an end. At this point in his life, Botting knew he wanted to remain in sport, although not necessarily as a coach and so and an undergraduate and then postgraduate degree course led him into the world of sports psychology.
Botting grew up in Russia (Image: Colin Mearns) Botting would ultimately spend nearly two decades inside the minds of some of Scotland's very best athletes, with the highs as high as they come in the sporting world in the shape of Olympic gold medals for his charges. And there's been the less glorious but no less significant moments of helping athletes through injuries, disappointments and crises of confidence, too.
Now, Botting, who has risen to become the sportscotland Institute of Sport Psychology Manager, is just weeks away from leaving the role that was so much more to him than just a job.
'After university, I felt like sports psychology was my calling and I feel so lucky to have been paid for a job which has never felt like a job, it's something I love to do,' he says.
'To be a sports psychologist, you have to be so emotionally invested and so while I still love helping individuals find solutions, 18 years is a long time and it just feels right to try something different.'
The list of sports and individual athletes with whom Botting has worked is too lengthy to mention here (and, for Botting's sins, includes myself). But his most notable partnership, in results terms anyway, is with curler Eve Muirhead and her rink, with whom Botting worked for many years. Their partnership was as successful as they come, with Team Muirhead becoming Olympic champions at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Botting is far too modest to claim any significant credit for Team Muirhead's Olympic triumph but in understanding their journey to Olympic gold, it becomes apparent that the psychological work Botting did with Muirhead and her teammates was vital in allowing them to fulfil their potential.
'Working with Eve (Muirhead) and her team for Beijing 2022 was such an interesting experience because a year before they won gold they were in a bad, bad place - they could barely win a game and they were not certain to even be at the Olympics,' Botting says.
Team Muirhead with their Olympic gold medals (Image: Getty Images) 'The team hadn't forgotten how to curl, rather their bad form was to do with the psychological side. But they made the adjustments and the compromises that they needed to become Olympic champions.'
There were, says Botting, countless highs during the past 18 years of working with Scotland's elite. From helping athletes perform after deaths of coaches to overcoming the mental trauma of serious injury to providing athletes with tools to perform under the most intense of pressure, Botting's successes are plentiful. And a personal highlight, he recalls, was returning to his birth country to take part in the Opening Ceremony as a member of Team GB at the 2018 Sochi Winter Olympics.
(Image: Colin Mearns) There is, perhaps surprisingly, a complete absence of lows when Botting reflects on his stellar career. The sports psychology mantra is, after all, that it's all about the process rather than the result and Botting fully subscribes to this.
'I genuinely can't remember the low points because I was never disappointed in anyone's results,' he says.
"I was always impressed with athletes' commitment to the process because that's what it's all about. If an athlete puts their heart and soul into the process then that's all you can ask of them.'
Botting's secret in becoming such a successful, liked and respected sports psychologist with so many of this country's top athletes is two-fold.
Firstly, his experience as an elite performer himself has, he believes, been extremely useful. As is his willingness to do things slightly differently.
'In high-level sport, staying present in the moment is vital but it's also very difficult. It's like an emotional yo-yo, which I understand and the fact the athletes know I went through something similar when I was on stage really helped,' he says.
'Some of my practices might not be typical sports psychology and you will not find them in a textbook but these things helped me put my creativity into practice and help athletes to see the world in a slightly broader sense.
'I was working with a runner and in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics, he was injured and it was very difficult for him to cope so we created haiku for each other and that helped him appreciate parts of his life beyond athletics and understand that it wasn't just about the next Olympic Games.
'And I worked with an athlete who was speaking about hitting the wall in the marathon and so I got my trainers and ran the Edinburgh Marathon so I could understand what it was like.
]'It's one thing reading books and understanding statistics and research, but it's another thing feeling the sport on your skin.'
Botting may have just weeks remaining of his role as sports psychologist to the great and the good of Scottish sport but the impact his work has had will remain etched in the memories of every athlete he paired up with. And, for Botting himself, the past 18 years are unforgettable.
'You see the tears of frustration or hear the screams from injury or cries of joy and you know an athlete has put everything into it,' he says.
'I've really connected with those feelings and that's what I've loved about this job.
'I've been blessed to work with so many incredible athletes across so many amazing sports and I'll miss it immensely but you get to a point whereby you just have to move on. And I'm at that point now.'
