Talent Identification and Development in Sport

International Perspectives

Joseph Baker, Stephen Cobley, Jörg Schorer, Joseph Baker, Stephen Cobley, Jörg Schorer

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000206678
• Edizione: 2
• Argomento: Ciencias biológicas
• Categoria: Ciencias del deporte y del ejercicio

Identifying and developing talented athletes to their fullest potential is a central concern of sport scientists, sports coaches, and sports policy makers. The second edition of this popular text offers a state of the science synthesis of current knowledge in talent identification and development in sport, from the biological basis of talent to the systems and processes within sport through which that talent is nurtured.

Written by a team of leading international experts, the book explores key factors and issues in contemporary sport, including:

• nature and nurture in the development of sporting talent

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• designing optimal developmental environments

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• long-term modelling of athlete development

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• understanding the complexity of talent selection

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• in-depth case studies of successful talent development systems.

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With an emphasis on practical implications for all those working in sport, the book offers an authoritative evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary systems for identifying and developing talent in sport. This is important reading for any student, researcher, or practitioner with an interest in skill acquisition, youth sport, elite sport, sports coaching, or sports development.

1Talent Identification and Development in Sport

An Introduction to a Field of Expanding Research and Practice

Stephen Cobley, Joseph Baker, and Jörg Schorer

Whether attending an event or watching on TV, sporting excellence can be simultaneously absorbing, exciting, and bewildering. As a lay observer, fan, scientist or sporting practitioner (e.g., coach; talent development program coordinator) understanding sporting excellence is a common topic of conversation and investigation. In sport science, understanding the nuances of sporting excellence is an ever-present focus, albeit the particular disciplinary lens under which investigation is conducted (i.e., physiology, motor control and skill acquisition, biomechanics, psychology, coaching, etc.) may vary. Irrespective of disciplinary stance, consistent, core questions are raised, such as:

• ‘What constitutes and underpins exceptionality in a given sporting context generically (e.g., soccer; athletics), or in a particular performance task specifically (e.g., long jump in athletics)?’
• ‘Can athletic potential be identified?’
• ‘How can coaches and athletes optimise their training and preparation to attain exceptionality?’
• ‘How can sport-systems be designed to optimise athlete development?’

It is these questions (and others) that have stimulated growing research and applied interest in the inter-disciplinary area of Talent Identification and Development (TID) in sport.

Mutuality in Research and Practice Expansion – or Is One Pulling the Other?

Whilst the origins of athletic talent identification can be traced to the formalised training schools in Ancient Greece (Ghristopoulos, 2003), TID in sport as a multidisciplinary research field (Piggott, Müller, Chivers, Papaluca, & Hoyne, 2018) has expanded considerably in the last two decades, particularly since publication of the first edition of this text in 2012. A literature search of key research databases using keyword search terms (e.g., ‘talent’, ‘sport’, ‘expertise’, ‘talent development’) as themes, and associated synonyms, identifies more than 2,700 articles published between 1990 and 2019, with an estimated 75 per cent published in the last ten years. Expansion is also reflected by the growth of systematic and narrative reviews of the field generally (e.g., Mann, Dehghansai, & Baker, 2017; Johnston, Wattie, Schorer, & Baker, 2018) alongside sport-specific reviews (e.g., soccer – Bergkamp, Niessen, den Hartigh, Frenchen, & Meijer, 2019; Sarmento, Anguera, Pereria, & Araújo, 2018; Unnithan, White, Geogiou, Iga, & Drust, 2012). In tandem, and over the last decade, many books have been published in both sport and other domains (e.g., The Complexity of Greatness – Kaufman, 2013). Moreover, sport-related texts have been directed toward differing audiences, including researchers (e.g., Routledge Handbook of Talent Identification and Development in Sport – Baker, Cobley, Schorer, & Wattie, 2017), sporting practitioners (e.g., Talent Development: A Practitioners Guide – Collins & MacNamara, 2017; Developing Sport Expertise – Farrow, Baker, & MacMahon, 2013), and the broader public (e.g., Bounce – Syed, 2010; The Sports Gene – Epstein, 2014).

The research interest in sporting TID has arguably grown in concert with, or response to, changes in national government policy and economics, as well as the commercialisation and globalisation of sport (Nagel, Schlesinger, Bayle, & Giauque, 2015). As part of what has been termed a ‘global sporting arms race’ (Oakley & Green, 2001; De Bosscher, Bingham, Shibli, van Bottenburg, & De Knop, 2008), national governments (e.g., UK [Green & Houlihan, 2005]) have substantially increased financial investment in national institutions (e.g., the respective English and Australian Institutes of Sport, Canada’s Own the Podium), whose remit has been to systematically attain elite sporting success. For governments, achieving sporting success at international events such as an Olympics or other highly culturally valued event (e.g., FIFA World Cup) has seemingly provided political, social, and economic benefit. Partly driven by economic events (e.g., global financial crisis) and neo-liberal economic policy, over similar time-periods nations’ state-sponsored ‘grass-roots’ sport provision has not shown equivalent growth. Instead, the financial reach and administrative control by sport governing bodies has increased, along with a growing number of independent, privatised, sport providers. (Evans & Davies, 2015). As a result, TID programming now contains a mixture of centralised state-funded, sport governing body, and local private sector providers.

Commercially speaking, an increase in several inter-dependent ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ demands (Gerrard, 2004) are likely responsible for increased TID programming. ‘Top-down’ demands include corporate organisations (e.g., TV corporations) seeking to attract consumers (audiences) to their sporting coverage. Similarly, sporting consortiums and professional teams within elite national leagues also exert top-down demands, as they seek to attract and/or develop the best senior athletes for (inter-)national success (e.g., the National Rugby League – Australian rugby league; the European Champions League – soccer). The impact of top-down commercial growth is exemplified by increasing global audiences in contexts such as the English Premier League (EPL – soccer) with an estimated 1.35 billion viewers in 2018/2019 (Premier League, 2019). In addition, new international sporting competitions have emerged, such as Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket and the International Swimming League (ISL), both of which attract the best-performing athletes from around the globe. Given the possible financial gains, as well as the benefits of attracting local and international audiences, the demand for competitive success has grown (Reilly, Williams, Nevill, & Franks, 2000; Vaeyens, Lenoir, Williams, & Philippaerts, 2008). As such, there are benefits from investment in (i) the recruitment of successful junior/youth athletes to help ascertain future success (or market growth); and (ii) professionalised TID programming (e.g., soccer academies; rugby development pathways within professional and amateur clubs). Expansion is also reflected in the creation of (inter-)national ‘feeder-clubs’ or links with private TID providers (so-called: ‘talent factories’) within sports (e.g., soccer schools) to help capture developing talent.

By contrast, ‘bottom-up’ demand refers to the accelerated consumerism (e.g., fandom, merchandise purchasing, TV subscription, gambling) of sport via national and international media exposure. Increased consumerism, the desire to emulate competitive sport, and be part of a sport-system, may all be associated with recent intensifications of youth sport, and the almost unquestioned popularity of TID programming. Researchers in the field, however, do not share such a position. Whether the forms of change and expansion are ultimately beneficial (e.g., increased practitioner base; opportunities for specialised training from an earlier age) or end up propagating emerging problems (e.g., athlete mental health) are key concerns (Cobley, 2016; Rongen, McKenna, Cobley, & Till, 2018). Emerging problems arguably represent the unintended by-products of (unregulated) growth and expansion in TID practice. We presently know so little about these issues that researchers are unable (currently) to accurately inform practice.

To provide a backdrop to the content, and topics, addressed in this second edition, the following sections define and explain concepts at the heart of the TID research and practice field, notably: talent in sport, talent identification, talent development, and development systems. Some of these terms, with their underlying meaning and component parts, can be complex as is the case when defining talent. Similarly, the components and processes involved in talent identification across and within sports can vary substantially, introducing assessment and practical challenges. What is required to optimally develop athletes can differ according to sport context demands, as well as the present capabilities and attributes of cohorts and/or individual athletes. Indeed, athletic development depends on an array of factors. To complicate matters, TID is often nested within different, sport-specific, development systems – each likely containing common structural attributes (e.g., stages akin to a pyramidal structure), but potentially exhibiting unique differences in their provision, and ‘day-day’ training programs. Thus, there is the potential for overlap and substantial diversity in the process of athlete development, with an abundance of research opportunities available to generate greater understanding, evaluation and learning. Part 2 of this text illustrates several international case-studies that highlight how particular issues/concerns are being examined in their context. In the meantime, and to help set up Part 1, let us begin by discussing talent.

Defining Talent in Sport: Mission Impossible or Concept Requiring Careful – Context-Specific – Application?

Across research, sport and lay contexts, there are differing definitions, descriptions and applications of the word ‘talent’, with little consensus on what talent ‘is’ (Schorer, Wattie, Cobley, & Baker, 2017). Understanding is certainly not helped by simplistic definitions in the popular press that consistently associate talent with ‘innate pre-dispositions’ that remain static and unchanging over time. Across sport contexts, practitioners also often apply the term interchangeably (e.g., ‘he/she has raw talent’), sometimes referring to a general ability (i.e., across skills) or using the term as a descriptor of overall performance, such as a player’s performance relative to others in a given age-group or level of competition. In other circumstances, talent is used to refer to a specific capability to execute a learned skill exceptionally (e.g., passing decision-making in netball; scrummaging in rugby). These multiple meanings make it difficult to empirically test the notion of talent since the concept is hard to operationalise (i.e., it means different things to different people).

In an initial attempt to provide some clarification and meaning from a sport-science perspective, we previously defined sporting talent as ‘referring to the quality (or qualities) identified at an earlier time that promotes (or predicts) exceptionality at a future time’ (Cobley, Schorer, & Baker, 2012). This definition allows both general factors, such as broad abilities (e.g., fundamental movement skills, intelligence), holistic performance (e.g., netball game-performance) as well as sport-specific skills (e.g., court movement and positioning) to be considered as predictors of talent. Still, given most sports have simultaneous physical and cognitive demands, which in themselves have multiple possible components, we orientated focus toward a multi-faceted composition of sporting talent, and the idea that the definition could be applied to different contexts and/or task-specific situations, knowing that the nature and number of factors constituting talent would change across sporting contexts. Exceptional court movement in badminton, for example, would involve a unique combination of perceptual-cognitive (e.g., anticipation), psychological (e.g., self-sustained vigilance of self and other players’ movement), motor (e.g., leg-coordination; balance adjustment), anthropometric (e.g., lean body mass), and physical characteristics (e.g., lower leg muscle strength; aerobic capacity) that could all help explain current performance.

The Cobley et al. (2012) definition also implicitly suggested talent by quality competency accumulation and talent by rarity were both possible. The former relates to the idea that high proficiency in each of underlying component qualities increases the likelihood of exceptionality, relative to others or a given reference group (commonly age groups). A lower proficiency in one or more underpinning qualities reduces the likelihood of being ‘talent identif...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• 1 Talent Identification and Development in Sport: An Introduction to a Field of Expanding Research and Practice
• PART 1 Theoretical and Conceptual Models for Understanding Talent Identification and Development
• PART 2 International Case Studies of Talent Identification and Development
• Index