Editorial: Research into talent development in youth sports

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Three chapters discuss several potential risks associated with talent development, including those of selection biases.Carvalho and Gonçalves illustrate how youth athletes' varying timing of biological maturation (puberty, growth spurt) and relative age within a birth-year cause specific biases in talent selection.This leads to increased risks of false-positive and false-negative selection decisions, given that both the biological-age effect and relative-age effect diminish or may even be reversed by adulthood.Wik describes injuries in talent development, exemplified by youth soccer.He explains how players' age, biological maturity, and growth affect the prevalence, types, and locations of injuries, highlighting particular vulnerability of youth athletes' growth plates and apophyses.Soares and Carvalho discuss fundamental issues associated with previous research into dropout of young talents.Dropout studies have typically addressed sport-specific, not general sport dropout; considered unselected, not talent development populations; and definitions of dropout have varied.In consequence, substantiated knowledge about the actual prevalence and factors of dropout from talent development pathways is still meagre.
Five chapters address several moderators of the process of practice and performance development (Figure 1).Weissensteiner discusses international trends in the historical development of national talent promotion systems, illustrated by the GDR, Australia, and the UK.Employing historical analyses, she works out the commonalities and particularities of three extremely successful talent promotion systems, and key learnings each of them obtained from the previous one.Hancock et al. review the state of research into the geography of talent development.Athletes born in places with medium population size and density typically have increased success probabilities.The authors also acknowledge that birthplace effects vary across sports, countries, and sexes; definitions of "medium" population size and density differ between countries; and athletes' birthplace and development place(s) may not be identical.Taking a holistic ecological approach, Henriksen and Stambulova conceptualise the athletic career as a journey through varying athletic and nonathletic social environments.They summarise qualitative investigations of successful environments and highlight shared features regarding organisational structure and culture that have been perceived to foster athletes' performance, wellbeing, and personal development.Generally, an overarching research question concerning all the potential factors of talent development is: To what extent do individual differences in childhood/adolescent factors predict individual differences in later senior performance?Given that youth athletes, parents, and coaches seek to expand athletes' benefits (e.g., enjoyment, performance, prestige) while controlling and limiting their risks (e.g., injuries, burnout, dropout) and costs (especially opportunity costs, i.e., the lost benefit of  Researchers elaborate theories that are then evaluated based on two truth values: logical consistency and empirical correspondence, where their empirical content constitutes their potential falsifiers (9).I.e., researchers propose systems of hypotheses and nature disposes of their truth or falsity (10).For many potential factors in talent development, multi-year experimental manipulation is difficult, if not impossible, for example: training volume and methods, parental and peer support, athletes' psychological characteristics, health, or psychosocial wellbeing.The methods of choice are therefore typically multi-year longitudinal quasi-experiments using prospective and retrospective designs while seeking to control for potential confounds.
There is a group of factors for which ample childhood/adolescent data of (later) senior athletes are available.For example, data on competitive performance development (11), relative age (Carvalho & Gonçalves), and birthplace (Hancock et al.) can typically be gathered from public records.Biological maturation (Carvalho & Gonçalves) and childhood/adolescent motor test scores are sometimes available from past routine monitoring procedures (12).Furthermore, athletes can reliably recall childhood/adolescent participation variables and involvement in talent promotion programmes (Güllich et  This has led to a broad body of evidence on effects of these childhood/adolescent predictors on long-term senior performance across wide ranges of sports, performance levels, and countries. Research into another group of potential factors is more difficult.For example, investigating the extent to which higherand lower-performing senior athletes differed in earlier childhood/adolescent factors such as: 1. their microstructure of practice (Larkin et al.); 2. correspondence of their practice to principles of ecological dynamics (Araújo et al.); 3. psychological characteristics [e.g., (13,14)]; 4. characteristics of athletes' social environment (Henriksen & Stambulova); or 5. support measures applied in talent promotion and dual-career programmes (Güllich et al.; Quinaud et al.).These variables are usually not available from public records or past routine monitoring procedures and senior athletes cannot reliably reconstruct them from their early years.This difficulty is perhaps one of the reasons why for these potential predictors, there is a broad body of theoretical hypotheses, normative assumptions, descriptive studies of youth athletes, and investigations of short-term effects on early junior performance.In contrast, evidence on effects of individual childhood/adolescence differences in these factors on long-term individual differences in senior performance is lacking.
However, we cannot infer predictors of senior performance by extrapolating findings from junior athletes because 1. successful juniors and successful seniors are largely two disparate populations (11) talent promotion programmes, and age to reach defined performance "milestones."Peters et al. analyse the literature specifically addressing girls' and women's participation variables.The participation patterns of many successful female athletes deviate from popular theoretical hypotheses such as Ericsson et al.'s (5) "deliberate practice" framework and Côté et al.'s (8) "Developmental Model of Sport Participation." Quinaud et al. address the combined athletic and academic development of youth athletes, labelled "dual career."Combining athletic and academic engagement implies competing time demands from sport and education.Considering position and policy papers, the authors call for clear definitions of guidelines, resources, roles, and responsibilities in the establishment of dual-career support programmes.Dehghansai et al. show that traditional talent development models are only partly applicable, at best, to Paralympic sports.Athletes' development differs between congenital vs. acquired impairment and across ages of acquiring an impairment.Furthermore, types and severity of impairments require varying resources in terms of equipment and coaching, and it is difficult to establish classifications that ensure fair competition systems.In conclusion, Paralympic talent development requires especial dedication, flexibility, creativity, and resources.Finally, Baker et al. advocate for embedding talent development models and research in multidimensional lifespan development models and research.The authors highlight the complexity of athletes' development within and between competitive and recreational participation and discuss challenges associated with that research.

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1Basic model of talent development.
and 2. predictors of early junior performance vs. long-term senior performance are different and partly opposite(Güllich et al.; Carvalho & Gonçalves).Likewise, although the goal is to expand athletes' benefits while limiting their risks and costs (see above), there is only scarce empirical evidence, if any, concerning childhood/adolescent predictors of adult high performance combined with other outcomes in Given that (1) the goal is to expand the athlete's benefits while limiting their risks and costs, while (2) effects of childhood/ adolescent factors may vary and even be opposite regarding short-term and long-term outcomes, the economic concepts of efficiency of practice-performance improvement per invested practice amount-and sustainability are paramount.They apply to research into youth athletes' participation patterns, microstructure of practice, ecological dynamics, coaching, talent promotion programmes, dual-career support, athlete services, and youth sport programmes in general, and lead to three critical research questions (Güllich et al.): (a) What short-and long-term, material and immaterial benefits, risks, and costs does a programme (or do different programmes) yield?(b) What objective and subjective value does each of the benefits, risks, and costs have?(c) What is the eventual ratio of the summed value of all benefits relative to the summed value of all risks and costs yielded by a programme (or by different programmes)?This research will advance our understanding of longterm talent development, foster our refinement of sound theories, provide the corresponding empirical evidence, and thereby facilitate evidence-based practice of talent development.