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Talent Identification in Sport: A Systematic Review
Kathryn Johnston1, Nick Wattie2, Jörg Schorer3
1School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada. krobinso@yorku.ca.
Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)
|October 31, 2017
Summary
Talent identification (TID) programs lack consistent predictors for elite athlete success. Research needs more diversity to understand which variables truly identify top talent.
Area of Science:
- Sports Science
- Talent Identification
- Elite Athlete Development
Background:
- Talent identification (TID) programs are crucial for selecting elite athletes.
- However, a definitive set of variables consistently predicting future success in TID programs is lacking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To synthesize findings from longitudinal and retrospective studies.
- To examine performance variable differences between highly skilled and less-skilled elite athletes.
Main Methods:
- Systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.
- Included 20 relevant studies.
Main Results:
- Overrepresentation of studies focusing on physical profiles (60%), male athletes (65%), adolescents aged 10-20 (60%), and publications from 2010-2015 (65%).
- Significant variability exists in factors differentiating skilled from less-skilled athletes.
Conclusions:
- Current knowledge on TID in elite sport is limited.
- There is a critical need for increased diversity in TID research to identify reliable predictors of athletic success.
