The Rocky Road to the Top

Abstract

The increasingly well funded and high-tech world of talent development (TD) represents an important investment for most sports. Reflecting traditional concepts of challenge and focus, the vast majority of such systems expend a great deal of effort maximizing support to the young athletes and trying to counter the impact of naturally occurring life stressors. In this article, we suggest that much of this effort is misdirected; that, in fact, talented potential can often benefit from, or even need, a variety of challenges to facilitate eventual adult performance. Our argument is built on evidence that such challenges are more common in athletes who reach the top, together with a critical consideration of the modus operandi and impact of psychological/character-focused interventions such as mental toughness and resilience. In conclusion, we explore some implications for the design and conduct of optimum academies and TD environments.

Profiling, Exploiting, and Countering Psychological Characteristics in Talent Identification and Development

“…For example, Petitpas discussed identity foreclosure in 1978, although it wasn't applied specifically to sport until Murphy et al in 1996. In similar fashion, we are now well acquainted with the importance of "tuning" TDEs to meet the developmental needs of youngsters (Eccles et al, 1993) while, at the same time, optimizing the setup to promote talent for effective senior performance (Collins & MacNamara, 2012). In short, our focus is on the exploitation of this knowledge within TID and we would argue that action is well overdue!…”

The prevalence and influence of psychosocial factors on technical refinement amongst highly-skilled tennis players

“…According to Swann, Moran, and Piggott's (2015) taxonomy of expertise, our sample are representative of semi-elite athletes as they participate just below the top standard possible in their sport (i.e., talentdevelopment programmes). Likewise, they may also be considered as participating along the Elite Referenced Excellence pathway (Collins et al 2012). Electronic-mail was used to contact potential participants within the United Kingdom.…”

“…essential in facilitating the transition through, and optimising benefits from, these disruptive times (MacNamara et al 2010;Orlick, 1990). It is, therefore, of interest to understand the different contexts in which these skills are utilised and how applied science support might be structured and implemented to optimise the experience through this "rocky road" (Collins & MacNamara, 2012). Therefore, reflecting the current scarcity of research addressing this topic during periods of technical refinement, and recent recognition of its importance within the field of applied sport psychology, the current study focused on exploring the prevalence and influence of psychosocial factors during the refinement process amongst highly-skilled performers .…”

“There's No Place to Hide”: Exploring the Stressors Encountered by Elite Cricket Captains

“…A potential limitation of our study was not being able to understand the specific consequences of each stressor. Indeed, previous research has identified how high level performers might not have succeeded to the extent they did if it were not for experiencing stressors in elite level sport (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012), and Collins and MacNamara (2012) suggested that youth athletes might benefit or even need to experience adversity to ultimately succeed in elite sport. Thus, the stressors illustrated in the present study might have helped the captains develop and flourish in their role.…”