Talent, can you spot it? - 10.1

Question 1

why is this important to us?

Answer 1

2008 Beijing Olympics
– Team GB - 4th position in medals table, supported by:
– £235 million
– £12.36 million per gold medal (19
in total)
– £5 million per medal (47 in total).

2012 London Olympics, 3rd in medals table
– £9m per gold medal (29 in total)

Rio 2016 – 2nd!
– BOA chairman Bill Sweeney put the success down to “20 years of investment” to culminate in “this outstanding performance” in Brazil, adding: “Since National Lottery funding started in 1997, we have had five consecutive [summer] Olympic Games of medal growth - no other country has come close to that.”
– With £274m doled out across all Olympic sports by UK Sport during the four-year Rio cycle, Britain’s 67 medals will have come at a cost of just under £4.1m each, at a time when participation in sport in the UK remains lower than it did when London hosted the 2012 Olympics.

Question 2

missing talent

Answer 2

“Indeed it is not difficult to imagine that some unsuspecting individuals will pass their lives unaware they possessed extraordinary talents in events such as luge or fencing or steeplechase”
- Thomas Rowland, 1998

How might we get better at this?

Tucker and Collins (2012)
- Individual A - Could be (has the
genetic potential) the world’s best but never takes up sport

Question 3

genetic component

Answer 3

HERITAGE Study (Claude Bouchard)
- Influence of genetic factors on health and disease risk
– VO2 max & responsivity to training stimulus – genetically constrained

COL5A1 gene – flexibility of ligaments / tendons
– Predisposition to tendon/ligament injury

VDR (vitamin D receptor)
– Associated with strength/power

ACE (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme)
– Endurance and strength/power

Are genes the answer to talent identification????

Question 4

Ross Tucker - the role of genes

Answer 4

Why do Kenyans make such good middle distance
runners?

Female Olympic rowers have much higher testosterone than age matched ‘normals’

Question 5

David Epstein

Answer 5

“The ACTN3 gene may tell a billion or so people in the world that they won’t be in the Olympics 100m final,”

“But chances are they all already knew that.”

i.e. Genes might have an effect but we can’t do much about that at the moment

Question 6

genetic issues to consider

Answer 6

Nature vs nurture?

Genetics vs environment?

Is hard work enough?

Should I sample or specialise?

Should I move to that elite squad?

What does an effective talent program look like?

Question 7

talent identification

Answer 7

The discovery or observation of talent in a specific sport

3 key strategies:

1. Talent Selection
2. Talent Detection
3. Talent Transfer

Question 8

1. talent selection

Answer 8

is the process whereby talented athletes are selected from within a sport based on their performance, physical and physiological testing and coaches’ expert opinions on their skill, technique, attitude and potential.

Question 9

NZ rugby

Answer 9

Last week, we may have witnessed the start of such a cycle as North Harbour, a provincial rugby union in New Zealand, dissolved its junior representative programme at Under-14 level. The decision was based on 14 months of research that showed falling participation rates were related to children feeling disillusioned when they were not selected for a representative team.

Question 10

which error is most tolerable?

Answer 10

Deselect an athlete who will not make it - yes

Deselect an athlete who will make it - no - (Type II)

Select an athlete who will not make it - no - (Type I)

Select an athlete who will make it - yes

3 = very expensive

2 = under-utilization of talent pool

How do we measure success?

Talent selection vs talent development

Question 11

2. talent detection

Answer 11

involves recruiting athletes from outside the sport who have physical and physiological attributes associated with success at the high performance level in that sport.

Question 12

British Rowing World Class start

Answer 12

John Keogh 
Process=
1. Identify talent
- Key attributes for rowing
  – Above average height, strength and aerobic capacity

2. Coach this talent to win medals
   - How do we measure success???
   – Podium success (?)
   – Football Academy?

Question 13

success

Answer 13

Senior team has 12 WCS alumni (25%)

WCS athletes have won 40 medals at U23 and senior WCs, Olympics (since 2002)

Question 14

structure

Answer 14

9 development centres

15 full time coaches

120,000 high school students surveyed to pre-select for testing

24,000 selected for testing

250 selected onto scheme since 2002

12 WCS athletes selected to represent GB at London 2012

Question 15

maths

Answer 15

10,000 people surveyed to find one Olympian

2,000 people tested to find one Olympian

Question 16

testing regions

Answer 16

nine dedicated centres (strategic locations)

1. Located in a rowing club
2. Surrounded by a large number of schools
3. Selected athletes could live at home / attend same school etc.
4. Could transfer to other centres as they continued education

Question 17

coaching structure

Answer 17

9 dedicated talent development coaches
– One at each centre
– Young and keen to impress
– Training – compliance with testing and identification protocols
– Strong technical aptitude, ability to develop a performance culture, excite / challenge athletes in daily training

Performance development coaches
– Oversee continual progression of both coach and athlete across
three centres

Question 18

testing protocol

Answer 18

1. Identify key performance factors
   - Height / arm span (levers affect stroke length)
   - Strength (apply force on blade)
   - Aerobic capacity
2. Validate tests
   - National team athletes (baseline)
3. Quick tests
   - Lots of people can do quickly
4. Not sport specific
   - Raw talent (i.e. not on rowing machine)
   - E.g. students with no training who had similar leg strength to Olympic champion

Question 19

development

Answer 19

Coach : athlete ratio = 1:6-8
– Time to focus on new skills from day one
– High level of training

Regular testing camps
– Land and water based tests
– Ranked against each other and national targets
– Progressed to more demanding tests once criterion had been reached
– Structured education program(nutrition, psychology etc.)

Continual comparison to world best times

Question 20

other (skill-based) sports?

Answer 20

Field hockey

Assess each ‘quarter’ and determine scores compared to peers (and themselves)

Question 21

3. talent transfer

Answer 21

is the process of identifying athletes with extensive and adaptable training backgrounds and transferable skills which assist them in transitioning and succeeding in a sport with a comparable athlete profile (e.g., similar physiological, psychological profiles and sporting skill components [technical, cognitive & perceptual]).

Question 22

do we need to specialise early?

Answer 22

Sports invest a lot of money in talent identification

Do we need formal talent identification programmes?
– U11, U15 etc,

Evidence from Gullich and colleagues
– Early talent identification is flawed / expensive

Question 23

Durandt et al. (2011)

Answer 23

see notes

Question 24

Vaeyens et al. (2009)

Answer 24

see notes

Question 25

implications

Answer 25

Being the best is not a sprint!

Talent transfer / crossover / recycling
– 10 of 12 Athens 2004 Olympic female diving finalists
started as gymnasts

UK Sport “gap to podium analysis”
– Sporting giants
– Pitch to Podium
– Fighting chance
– Girls4gold

Question 26

recycling

Answer 26

1. Second chance opportunities
2. Improved chance of success
3. Increased return on investment
4. Reduced uncertainty

Question 27

talent transfer advantages

Answer 27

highly motivated and goal oriented

accomplished in current sport

great self-management skills

good work ethic

proven performer in competition
environments

no bad technical habits.

Question 28

Gulbin et al. (2013)

Answer 28

The popular linear pyramid of progression through a system does not seem to exist.

More complex…

see notes

Question 29

Gullich and Emrich (2012)

Answer 29

see notes

Involvement in various sports provides varied learning stimuli:

1. Multiple sampling and functional matching (find the sport that best ‘fits’)
2. Buffering of costs and risks of extensive practice (premature withdrawal)
3. Exposure to varied situations of problem-solving
4. Varied paths to the top
5. No evidence for superiority of early specialisation
6. Benefits of variability
7. … Any variability

Question 30

Gullich et al. (2019)

Answer 30

Developmental biographies of Olympic Super- Elite and Elite athletes – a multidisciplinary pattern recognition analysis

This multidisciplinary study used pattern recognition analyses to examine the developmental biographies of 16 Great British Olympic and World Champions (‘Super- Elite’) and 16 matched international athletes who had not won major medals (‘Elite’). Athlete, coach and parent interviews (260 total interview hours) combined in-depth qualitative and quantitative methods. A combination of demographics, psychosocial characteristics, coach and family relationships, practice, competition, and performance development discriminated Super-Elite from Elite athletes with > 90% accuracy. Compared to Elite athletes, Super-Elite athletes were characterized by: (1) An early critical negative life experience in close proximity to significant positive sport-related events; (2) higher relative importance of sport over other aspects of life, stronger obsessiveness/perfectionism, and sport-related ruthlessness/selfishness; (3) conjoint outcome and mastery focus, and use of counterphobic and/or ‘total preparation’ strategies to maintain/enhance performance under pressure; (4) coaches who better met their physical and psychosocial needs; (5) coming back after severe performance setbacks during adulthood, and career ‘turning points’ leading to enhanced determination to excel; (6) more pronounced diversified youth sport engagement, and prolonged extensive sport-specific practice and competitions; and (7) continued performance improvement over more years during adulthood, eventually attaining their (first) gold medal after 21 ± 6 practice years. The findings are discussed relative to potential causal interactions and theoretical implications.

see notes