During the women's pole vault final on a warm Wednesday evening in Paris, Kiwi star Eliza McCartney followed a set routine.
After every attempt - whether successful or not - she first loped over to her coaches in the stands at the edge of the oval, to chat about what just happened and discuss the next vault. Then, she headed back to the athlete's seating next to the competition area, pulled out a notebook, and started writing.
McCartney was not alone in this habit.
Her Canadian rival Alysha Newman, who claimed bronze that night (McCartney finished sixth equal), was shown between vaults also jotting down notes.
"Writing a postcard, maybe?" one of the Sky commentators mused. "It's all business, no doubt."
Unlike track events, field events involve a lot of down-time as athletes wait for their rivals to compete.
Camera footage constantly cuts to the competitors in between jumps or throws: Sharing bags of lollies, stretching on the sidelines, practising their run-ups and turns - and, notably at these Games, journaling.
Media already picked up on Australian high jumper Nicola Olyslagers' journaling habit at the Tokyo Olympics, where she was rarely seen without her 'Little Book of Gold' between jumps.
The green notebook was back on track with Olyslagers when she won silver earlier this week.
In it, she gives herself ratings out of 10 for each component of the jump, along with motivational quotes and - Olyslagers is a devout Christian - Bible verses.
Australian high jumper has been taking a journal to competitions and training since 2019. Photo: Kevin Voigt
McCartney told RNZ her own journal acted as a training and competition record.
"Mostly I'm taking technical notes because I forget immediately what I just did.
"So I'm writing things like what pole I used, what my grip was, how far back my run-up was, what my uprights were on - all the fiddly technical information."
She included one other crucial piece of information: "And then what I felt in that jump - because I can watch the videos back but I want to know, actually, what did I feel at the time? Then we go back and analyse it - we do a lot of this."
Writing all of this down helped to mentally declutter in the throes of competition, she said.
"I get it out of my head, I write it on paper [and] I don't have to remember it."
McCartney has a distinctive style in competition Photo: Simon Stacpoole / www.photosport.nz
Breaking the psychology 'taboo' in sport
Auckland athlete development coach Craig Harrison was thrilled that Olympians were being shown openly keeping their training journals.
"It's awesome to see that they're doing that. It's quite interesting that this is one of the first times it's been on show."
Asked about the motivational self-talk some athletes were also shown doing before a jump or throw, he said they were two separate tools, but with a common purpose.
"They're specifically for staying in the moment and letting out the negative stuff."
Keeping a journal or similar record could also be an important resource later on, as McCartney talked about.
"A lot of thinking goes on in the moment that doesn't necessarily get documented, so after the fact it's really hard to draw on that in an accurate way," Harrison said.
"To write that down and use it as a retrospective tool can be really powerful."
Keeping a diary is not a new concept - "Aristotle talked about journaling" - but being so open about it was a newer development among elite athletes, he said.
"There's a lot of athletes that have been using tools [like that] for a long time but the taboo-ness of having sports psychologists doesn't exist in the same way."
Get used to athletes and their diaries, in other words: "You're just going to see more and more of it".
