ABSTRACT
Talent development of young athletes is a very complex, multidimensional and unpredictable concept. Despite this fact, sporting organizations in their pursuit of nurturing young talented athletes have spent considerable time, resources and finances in developing programmes that can guarantee success. Unfortunately to date, most programmes lack a framework and empirical evidence to support their implementation, if indeed a theoretical framework is provided at all. There is still considerable debate about whether it is possible to have one overarching strategy that encompasses an aim to increase youth sports participation while at the same time preparing young athletes for elite performance (Green, 2007). Or whether these two aims are unachievable under one strategy and need to be disentangled. These dilemmas are understandable given the difficulty, in the first instance of identifying talented athletes (see Chapter 2) and then planning ahead to develop and enhance their talents. In this chapter talent development is defined as the procedure or provision of the environment that realizes an athlete’s potential. This definition is in contrast to talent identification which is a process of recognizing an athlete’s potential to succeed (Russell, 1989). A major weakness of all talent-development programmes is that the empirical evidence used to support them is usually cross-sectional. Recent debates about the Long Term Athlete Development Plan (see ‘basic theoretical concepts’ below) in the UK have accelerated the growing concerns that the cross-sectional data upon which to base such programmes is outdated and ignores the multidimensional and dynamic nature of young athlete’s development (Bailey et al., 2010; Ford et al., 2011). Most paediatric literature, either physiological or psychological, is cross-sectional and rectifying this problem is technically challenging, expensive and time consuming. The opportunity to longitudinally measure youngsters throughout childhood and adolescence is a daunting prospect and is not sufficiently
acknowledged in the adult literature where, of course, the majority of growth and maturation has ceased, and training and learning effects are likely to be smaller in magnitude. The consequences of growth and maturation are fundamental to the study of paediatric exercise science and are a key differentiator between young athletes and adult athletes. The assumption that an important characteristic of success found in adult athletes can be extrapolated back to young athletes has as much validity as expecting a successful young athlete possessing that characteristic to retain it into adulthood. Generally, there has been little debate by adult and junior coaches as to their expectations about how to translate or transition these junior characteristics into successful performance in adulthood. An effect of growth and maturation is observed in the relative age effect, a phenomenon first reported in adult ice hockey players in the mid-1980s (Barnsley et al., 1985). Barnsley and colleagues showed that the majority of players were born in the first half of the year. This study was followed up for three years in young junior ice hockey players in Canada with strikingly similar results (Barnsley and Thompson, 1988). Since that time the relative age effect has been confirmed across a variety of both individual and team sports. This skewing of the birth distribution data for selection is a reflection of those youngsters gaining an advantage not only in relation to increased exposure to sports training and coaching time, but also as a reflection that chronological age does not mirror biological age. Hence, early-maturing children who gain advantages in height, weight, speed and strength are often selected ahead of late maturers in team sports. Conversely in those sports where it favours late maturers (e.g. dance, gymnastics) the relative age effect (RAE) is reversed because these characteristics can be detrimental to sports performance. For an extensive literature review on the RAE see Cobley et al. (2009).
