Sports psychologist on Van den Bergh's panic attacks: 'Not a case of match stress, but psychological stress'

Dimitri Van den Bergh suffered medical problems at the German Darts Open recently. The 28-year-old Belgian subsequently went for a check-up in hospital, but nothing was discovered there.

Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws consulted sports psychologist Jef Brouwers. "This is not a case of competitive stress, but psychological stress. Something triggered him, giving him regular panic attacks. What exactly does that mean? He has somehow gone extremely out of his comfort zone, perhaps putting too much pressure on himself. That's how you lose control, and then you have stress symptoms'', Brouwers said.

"You can compare it a bit to the feeling when you reach into your pocket, but suddenly don't feel your mobile phone'', Brouwers continues. "Then there is brief panic. But with Dimitri it's worse then. Also because he doesn't know what the cause is. In the above example, if you recover your mobile phone, that stress is over. Dimitri doesn't know the reason and so has to look for that trigger. How it originated. Only that is hard to find, which is why he may benefit from speaking to an expert. Once he is rid of these panic attacks, and he will be, it will also be over. It's not like this is a recurring phenomenon."