Talent Identification for Sports - Essay Example

Talent Identification for Sports Talent Identification for Sports Competition itself is a well-defined shape of talent identification, as it facilitates to recognize the most talented and suitable athlete for a particular sports. Many athletes did not identify their self-talent and chose unsuitable sports for themselves, which resulted in defeat. However, if such individuals make correct choice according to their talents, they can achieve success easily. It is very important to realize the fact that without talent identification and talent development, spending time on unsuitable sports is the wastage of money, energy, and time. Within past few years, talent identification and talent development have become crucial issues of discussion between sports professionals. In this paper, we shall discuss the importance of TID and TDE programs, which have spread almost in every corner of the world, and became an important part of the UK`s sports culture. Peltola and Thomson (1992) defined talent identification, as a procedure of encouraging and involving younger kids into sports by recognizing their God gifted skills, through which they are most likely to get achievements in the chosen sports activity. Testing and talent identification process require methods to measure current levels of fitness and maturity (Burgess 1992). Despite, modifications in regulations and patterns of sports activities, methods selecting participants are not changed and they still based on the factors like ideals, desires, tradition, popularity of the game, pressure from guardians or teachers and limited availability of sport resources (Brown 2001). This system gives rise to famous sports in a specific state for the players having sufficient supply of participants, whereas the other low profile sports seek out for participants to come and perform. There are certain factors suggested by the intellectuals that should be considered while talent development of the youngsters. For instance, researchers have noted during childhood many changes occur in the body shape and structure including, various fitness components (Weinberg and Gould 2010). Nevertheless, today proper utilization of such information by the professionals is poor, which can help encourage and enhance performances of the players (Stafford 2005). The most effective known model, which helps consider all these factors before preparing younger players for particular sports, is known as Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model (Stafford 2005). This model focuses on the fact that players’ developmental models should be flexible enough to alter sports preparations and methods of training of the participants by observing changes in their physical measures and interest in a particular chosen sports. In Past, when performances of the sports players decline in South Africa, practitioners adopted a strategic tool known as, South African Sport for Life (SAS4L) Long-Term Participant Development Model (LTPD). It was taken as an initiative to enhance performances of their players (Louw and Louw 2010). South Africa adopted this method of training from the experiences of several athlete development projects, which have been applied by numerous sport companies in the UK, Canada, and Ireland. Moreover, Eastern Bloc countries also examine the negative and positive impacts of this model on the performances of the players and the productivity of the sports (Louw and Louw 2010). The UK has introduced a variety of sports at both local and national level such as badminton, squash, rugby, golf, cricket, and association football etc. However, four main sports of the UK are considered elite level sports because of their popularity and demands among the audiences (Collins, Martin and Vamplew 2005). These high profile sports of the UK include, Ice Hockey League, Rugby League, Cricket, and Football the most famous amongst all. Young participants intend to participate in the sports, which are more popular than other games. However, previously sport coaches of the UK were also not expert enough to realize the importance of particular talent needed for defined sports activity (Bosscher, Bingham and Shibli 2008). Nevertheless, with the passage of time new sport academies established and sport coaches intended to adopt strategies. Through, which they can train, guide and help young players according to their self-talents and abilities. Current reports showed that £1.8 million have been spent to assist sport coaches of the UK, to get higher and suitable training of tutoring young talent properly; this program was funded by “Sport England.” Availability of qualified and trained coaches is foremost as realized by sport professionals of England and survey report of 2007-2008 showed that more than 7.5 billion individuals have been benefited from the training of qualified coaches (Sport England 2009). Training program is also financially supported by “National Skills Academy for Sport and Active Leisure, Skills Active and Sports coach UK.” It has observed that thousands of interested candidates are taking training classes from identified national governing bodies (NGBs), which provide training for more than 40 sports of the world (Sport England 2009). The CEO of National Skills Academy for Sport and Active Leisure Mr. Florence Orban mentioned that our company is privileged to play a vital role in fulfilling the demands of England`s sports mission by helping those, involved in sports of the state through quality training (Sport England 2009). Moreover, in order to assist talented workforce; safeguard a lasting sporting legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games. According to “English Institute of Sports” England`s sport faculty is searching for deserving and talented participants to perform remarkably in the London 2012 Olympic Games. For this, another step has been taken by the faculty members to implement talent identification programs in the sports of England and tests of EIS (Eis2win. 2012). Moreover, intellectuals have recommended some strategic policies, which can help further to strengthen the network of training coaches and players both according to their natural attributes to get the maximum outcome (Frani 2008). Suggestions from expert practitioners include that a sport coach should be able to identify the importance of coaching participants in an appropriate manner at first place. Nature, habits, and changes took place during development of the body, which should also be a vital aspect of consideration while selecting and training an individual for a particular sport (Frani 2008). Moreover, it is expected that Universities should play an important part in identifying talents and interest of their students, towards particular sports and then such students should be provided with proper guidelines (Bailey, Collins and Ford 2010). Leading sports agencies should facilitates sport academies through charity and develop a communication system between them and governmental funding agencies to establish the research network in this ground (Green and Houlihan 2005). In addition, professional academies should give attentive training to those participants, who are highly talented for elite sports. These academies and professional coaches working here are expected to take fund from the government to add efficiency in the training procedures (Robinson 2009). Furthermore, England`s efforts related to support for grass root sports have also been noted, as recent news report tells that £135 million are funded to concerned authoritative bodies of sports regulation in the country to make modifications and further influential advancements into grass root sport (Sport England 2012). Other agencies including, British Olympic Association (BOA) and the British Paralympics Association (BPA) are struggling to flourish more than 1000 sports academies and universities` sport departments. In addition, aid to numerous sport programs that will assist players in future to maintain performance excellence (Sport England 2012). Hugh Robertson, sports Minister of England claims that the sport regulating bodies will generate interest in people to actively participate and encourage grass root sport activities and the notion of selecting sport players would preferably based on their match able talents and skills through which they can win the sports grounds (Sport England 2012). From the above discussion, it is noted that great efforts are being made by the sport regulating bodies to adopt and implement talent identification and development programs. Modern methods of training individuals are adopted to reduce risk factors of failure during the game because of imperfect body posture or lack of interest. Most specifically in the UK, government is struggling to improve performances of sports academies, which will ultimately increase quality of training from professional coaches of the UK and performances of the players in sports grounds. List of References Bailey, R., Collins, D. and Ford, P., 2010. Participant Development in Sport: An Academic Review. The National Coaching Foundation, pp.1-101. Bosscher, V., Bingham, J. and Shibli, S., 2008. The Global Sporting Arms Race: An International Comparative Study on Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success. Oxford: Meyer and Meyer Verlag. Brown, J., 2001. Sport Talent. New York: Human Kinetics. Burgess, R., 1992. Talent Identification. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 28 January 2012]. Collins, T., Martin, J. and Vamplew, W., 2005. Encyclopaedia of Traditional British Rural Sports. New York: Routledge. Eis2win., 2012. First Wave of Sporting Giants Tested. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 28 January 2012]. Frani, P., 2008. Sports coach UK launch High-Performance Coaching Development Team. [Online] Available at: Read More