Purpose under pressure: how calling, recovery, emotional regulation and flow shape elite athletic performance.

INTRODUCTION: Athletic performance in professional roller hockey is influenced not only by physical, technical, and tactical factors, but also by psychological resources that help athletes regulate pressure, sustain recovery, and enter optimal performance states. This study examined sport calling as a relatively stable psychological resource for understanding performance under pressure in professional roller hockey. Drawing on a demands-resources perspective applied to sport, we tested whether baseline sport calling was associated with competitive performance directly and indirectly through perceived well-being/recovery, pre-competitive psychological states, and flow. METHODS: A longitudinal field design with repeated measures was conducted during a four-day knockout tournament involving 80 male professional roller hockey players. RESULTS: Linear mixed models indicated that baseline sport calling was positively associated with competitive performance, flow, and self-confidence, and negatively associated with poorer perceived recovery, cognitive anxiety, and somatic anxiety across the tournament. Exploratory time-specific mediation analyses further suggested that the association between sport calling and performance was consistent with an indirect pathway involving perceived recovery, self-confidence, and flow at the first and second competitive stages. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that sport calling may be understood as a motivational and identity-based resource associated with more adaptive psychological functioning and competitive performance under pressure. The study contributes to sport psychology by positioning calling as a promising construct for understanding performance, recovery, and optimal experience in elite sport contexts.