Inside the minds of two US Olympians — and how they achieve greatness

NEW YORK — Erin Jackson, the pragmatic speedskater, missed practices in high school while she was building a robot.

Alysa Liu, the free-spirited U.S. figure skater, quit the sport at 16 and climbed to Mount Everest base camp in Nepal.

This pair of U.S. Olympians, each with her own winding journey, demonstrate how different personality traits and cognitive styles — how their brains work — can lead to athletic greatness.

“Different athletes may arrive at excellence via very different mixes of focus, creativity, emotional control, risk tolerance and social engagement," Paul McCarthy, a psychologist in Great Britain who has worked with athletes, told USA TODAY Sports. “The sport sets the constraints; the brain finds its own solution."

And some brains are built better for Olympic success.