How to get ahead of the game

Sporting Knacks: Want to win Wimbledon, fly off a 700-foot cliff, catch the perfect wave? Or maybe play golf the Alice Cooper way? Robin Eggar learns the secret from Pete Sampras, Steve Collins, David Coulthard and Colin Jackson

How to take a corner at 100 mph David Coulthard

"It's a combination of what your eye tells your brain, what your brain tells your body, and what your body tells the car. Up until the apex of the corner, you are increasing the lock on the steering wheel, then you release it and start to accelerate out. You never change gear coming into a corner, and you brake well before. The very fact of turning the wheel generates friction in the front tyres, which drops speed off the car. In a high-speed corner, you pull a lot of G-force onto the body, but I've trained for years to handle a Grand Prix. I'm flexible, strong in upper body, neck, forearms and grip. On a tight corner, you cannot flow round as you will run out of road. Your mental and physical preparation for the corner is exactly the same, but the brain request and right foot request is much higher. What you have to do is push the brain to the limit and beyond."

David Coulthard drives for the McLaren Formula One team

How to catch the perfect wave Lee Bartlett

"If you can't see the horizon, that means a set [of waves] is coming along. Paddle 20 yards past the breaking waves. You're looking for a different texture in the water out to sea - anything out of the ordinary. The darker it is, the more shadow on the wave, the steeper it is. Angle the board in the direction you want to go rather than straight down the face of the wave, and start paddling towards the beach. As soon as you feel the wave pick you up, look over your shoulder to see how long before it hits you, then get to your feet. Try to get into the steepest part of the wave, but don't let it break on top of you - stay in the pocket where the power is. Your feet should be just over shoulder-width apart, knees bent like a boxer's. The front foot should be facing the same the same way as the shoulders, your back foot just over the fins. Waves can be very dangerous, so when you fall off, cover your head up, try and curl into a ball, take a deep breath, and don't panic or you will use up all your oxygen. You have 15 minutes until the next set."

Lee Bartlett has been British Surf Champion for the past two years

How to cope with pressure Pete Sampras

"You need to rid yourself of the consequences of what is going on. The best way to do that is to try to achieve a game plan or strategy that is not affected by winning or losing. I play a match point by point, especially on grass, where one or two sloppy mistakes can get you into trouble. If I hit my spots on my serve and I'm aggressive on my volleys, most of the time I'm going to be successful. I never think about the crowd noise, just the next point. I don't worry about what the other person is doing. If the guy is playing well, I use that as a challenge -'Let's see if he can still do it when it comes to crunch-time at the end of the set'. If my concentration wavers - which does happen - I get back to Square One. I look serious because I have to be totally focused on the match. This is a very tough sport. It can all be down to one point, one slip of concentration, and you can find yourself out of the tournament."

Pete Sampras is currently the tennis world number 1

How to get a flying start Colin Jackson

"First, you have to increase your explosive power, which comes from weight training and plyometric exercises like bounding and jumping. Next, you have to prepare yourself for the gun, so nothing else is on your mind and you react solely to the crack. I never practise starts before I compete - just do all my stretching and a little sprinting. Then my mind gets set for my job, which is to get across the line as quickly as possible. I only zoom back in when the guy says, `On your marks'. Never try to anticipate the gun. If you do, you'll put yourself under extra stress. I'm not really aware of the other people in the blocks. Hurdlers focus on that first hurdle. You can only hold concentration for about a minute - which is why you mustn't focus too far in advance. The mind is like an elastic band stretched tight - eventually, it has to twang. If you have had a bad start, your whole race is shattered, gone. When the gun goes, you do the first three to four strides really quickly. The first hurdle comes at the eighth stride. I take that and take off."

Colin Jackson holds the world record for the 110 metre hurdles

How to get a perfect swing Alice Cooper

"You know how you feel when you are so furious you want to throw the club away forever? Well, that's your perfect swing. Take your right arm right back, and then let it swing through the apex, aiming at one o'clock. Just don't let go. Before hitting, I blank out everything except the ball. I'm not distracted at all - you could put a marching band through there and I'd still hit the ball. A golf swing is about balance and timing. Get back on your right side and swing through onto your left side. If you finish the swing and you're falling forward or back, then your balance is wrong. It won't go anywhere if you hit it hard - you have to hit with rhythm. Johnny Miller says that if you chant `Cin-dy Crawford Cin-dy Crawford', that's the perfect rhythm. I chant `Sher-yl Coo-per' because otherwise my wife will hit me."

Rock singer Alice Cooper plays off a 4 handicap

How to take a punch Steve Collins

"The three main factors are a combination of balance, basic toughness and technique. If someone is swinging a punch, first try to avoid it. Keep your hands up, keep yourself a moving target. You can take the punch if you know how to ride it, or you can block it and make the guy miss. You can be shown how to absorb punishment, but the hand is quicker than the eye. If a rock is falling off a high building and you put your hand out and catch the rock, it will break your hand. If you move with the rock before you grasp it, there is no heavy contact, which takes out the sting. It's the same principle with boxing. Sometimes you don't see them coming, so it has to become an instinctive reaction. After 25 years' boxing, I've got pretty good at it."

World supermiddleweight champion, Steve Collins, defends his title against Craig Cummings in Glasgow tonight

How To Fly Like A Bird Judy Leden

"I live in the Peak District and I often launch myself from Man Tor, 700ft off the valley floor. You just step off the edge - it's a very lovely feeling, not like the terror you get when you jump out of a plane. You have to watch out for thunderstorms. The only person I've seen die, died in a thunderstorm. If the cloud is taller than it's wide, or you can see cauliflowers poking out the side of these clouds, those are danger signs. Suddenly, there is lift everywhere and it feels wrong. Instead of flying like a bird, you make like a brick and get out of the sky. The best flights are when I'm automatically feeling what the air is doing. You develop almost a sixth sense. When you hit a thermal, you instinctively turn towards it - you can sense where the best lift is. I've been rendered unable to speak at the end of an eight-hour flight. I couldn't form a sentence, and I couldn't walk. But I was truly happy."

Judy Leden is paragliding world champion and the holder of six world records.

How To Survive at Sea Pete Goss

"You're totally reliant on yourself. I take it in 24-hour steps. You need to be very supple because, working in those conditions, you're static for a long time, until you do a sail change - and then it gets explosive. If you get thrown across the boat by a big wave and land in a chart table, you can absorb the impact and not tear a muscle. You need to know when to sleep. I get four to five hours of sleep every 24, broken into 20-minute catnaps. Calm weather is awful because you have to be up there all the time. In the trade winds, I've been in bed for six hours, though I wake up every hour, check the instruments and go back to sleep. You also need medical and technical knowledge! If anything goes wrong, how long you can survive depends on your equipment. From the moment you send a Mayday, the clock's ticking, there is an inevitable end to it, or you get some help. Raphael [see below] had made peace with himself, but he was going to fight to the end. You have a choice. You can sit down and die, or you can get on with it. You're on your own. You can't go home"

During the Vendee Globe race, Pete Goss rescued fellow competitor Raphael Dinelli and was subsequently awarded the Legion d'Honneur. During the race, he operated on his elbow with the aid of a mirror, a head torch and an orthopaedic surgeon on the end of a fax machine