Psychological characteristics of champion orienteers: Should they be considered in talent identification and development?

Abstract

A range of cognitive skills that support the development of sport potential have been suggested to be important for athletes and coaches. This study explored performers' psychological characteristics within orienteers. The psychological skills of World Elite orienteers and athletes in the National Junior Squads of both Great Britain and Switzerland were assessed using the six factor Psychological Characteristics of Excellence Questionnaire. Data suggested that, as juniors, elite orienteers reported less support for long-term success than the Swiss juniors, perhaps because of the earlier adoption of self-coaching, but were not significantly different from either junior group on all other Factors. British juniors were not significantly different from the other two groups on any Factor. Follow up qualitative approaches explored possible reasons for the World Elites' early reliance on 'self' rather than 'other', the role of the coach and the self-coaching phenomenon. The role of orienteering in developing these skills is also discussed along with unique psychological challenges faced by high performing orienteers.

Psychological characteristics of developing excellence in elite youth football players in English professional academies

“…This may seem surprising given that qualitative studies have consistently shown imagery to be important for development into an elite senior athlete (Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2002;Gould, Dieffenbach, & Moffett 2002;MacNamara et al, 2010aMacNamara et al, , 2010b. However, despite the reduction in imagery use during practice and competition, the mean scores of U15-U16 players in the current study were similar or higher compared to elite youth and senior orienteers (Newton & Holmes, 2017) 3.89 ± 0.99, respectively). Therefore, elite youth football players aged 11-16 years engage in relatively high levels of imagery usage, suggesting that it may be useful in engaging in their current context, i.e., being a member of a professional academy.…”

“…MacNamara and Collins (2013) showed that in elite youth team sports athletes aged 16, coach-rated 'good developers' displayed higher scores than 'poor developers' on evaluating performances and working on weaknesses (4.99 ± 0.72 vs. 4.56 ± 0.85). Furthermore, British elite youth orienteers scored particularly highly on this factor (4.97 ± 0.79), and in-depth interviews with their coaches revealed that it was a major focus of talent development processes in this context (Newton & Holmes, 2017). The current study is the first to provide evidence that this unique factor is important in the development of elite youth football players.…”

“…***** Table 2 A range of PCDEs have been shown to be important in talent development processes in several sports (MacNamara et al, 2010a(MacNamara et al, , 2010bMacNamara & Collins, 2013Newton & Holmes, 2017). Based on the mean (SD) PCDEQ factor scores displayed in Table 1, Coping with performance and developmental pressures scores increased with age, possibly due to the increased demands placed on players as they progress on the pathway to excellence.…”

“…With regards to the context-specific nature of PCDEs, although MacNamara and Collins (2013) included football players within their sample of team sports athletes, a specific exploration of the role of PCDEs in academy football is required, as this context may differ compared to rugby and hockey for example. Indeed, research into other sports, such as orienteering, has shown limited differences in PCDEQ scores between senior elite performers recalling their developmental years and performers from national elite youth development programmes from Britain and Switzerland (Newton & Holmes, 2017). With regards to the development of PCDEs, MacNamara et al (2010b) suggested that young athletes develop and refine PCDEs as they progress towards elite senior performance, in response to changing demands and opportunities associated with different stages of development and the macro and micro transitions encountered on the pathway to excellence (see Côté, 1999, for a discussion on stages of development).…”

Visual search characteristics of precise map reading by orienteers

“…To maximize the potential of the orienteer, the selection and training of orienteers are both important (Newton & Holmes, 2017). This finding reminds us that we should increase the familiarity of the orienteer with the map information during training.…”