Sean McCann, USOC Sports Psychologist, published a thoughtful article in the most recent US Olympic Coach E-magazine.
One of the ironies of a coaching life, is that the great majority of the long hours that elite coaches spend are not evaluated, while a small minority of their work (competition) is endlessly and publicly scrutinized.
McCann offers 10 tips for coaches preparing to do the job. For example:
Prepare for the worst (but expect the best). Coaching in the last few minutes is much easier when you have done all the work you needed to in the hours, days, weeks, and months, preceeding the last few minutes. …
When you have effective contingency plans for the worst case scenario, you can relax as a coach. You can only know if they are effective if you have actually practiced these situations in training.
Essentially, the goal is to organize competition simulations in which your athletes have to handle conditions at least as tough as the worst case scenario. Examples include competing without a normal warm-up, changing the time of competition, playing loud crowd noise (USOC Sport Psychology has a 30 minute crowd noise CD we have distributed to coaches and athletes), and any other logistical wrinkle or challenge you can throw at your athletes.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 