UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGES IN IDENTIFYING AND DEVELOPING THE SPORTING SUPERSTARS OF TOMORROW

DEVELOPING THE SPORTING SUPERSTARS OF TOMORROW

The ability to identify and develop athletic talent into the sporting superstars of tomorrow has significantly grown and intensified in recent years. This system is now commonly referred to as Talent Identification and Development (TID). Many professional sport clubs and national governing bodies implement such systems during the childhood or adolescence stages. However, whilst these TID programmes are ‘big business’ for sport, it is a complex process. Coaches must consider the numerous physiological and psycho-social factors that can impact upon understanding, identifying and developing talent within young people.

Given this complexity, TID has remained a ‘hot topic’ within sport science for the last two decades. This webinar will aim to highlight some of the challenges of TID within youth athletes including using Kevin and colleagues interdisciplinary research within sport science, sport coaching and strength & conditioning.

The practical implications and future research directions of this work will be discussed providing researchers and practitioners with ‘food for thought’. Kevin will discuss how we can work collaboratively to overcome these challenges in identifying and developing the sporting superstars of tomorrow and healthy and high performing athletes for future generations.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

This workshop will:

• Describe the process of talent identification and development within youth sport.
• Highlight the challenges of identifying and developing talent in youth sport athletes.
• Summarise research related to talent identification and athletic development in youth athletes.
• Demonstrate practical solutions to common challenges associated with talent identification and development in youth athletes.

PRESENTER PROFILE

Kevin Till is a Professor in Athletic Development within the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University. He has published over 120 international scientific peer-review publications over the last decade related to youth athletes, talent identification and development, sport science and coaching.

Kevin is also a UKSCA accredited strength and conditioning coach. He has worked across multiple sports, mainly rugby, for the last 12 years and currently works as an S&C coach at Yorkshire Carnegie RUFC and Leeds Rhinos RLFC within their academy programmes.