Physical giftedness/talent: A systematic review of the literature on identification and development

Abstract

In this study, a systematic review was undertaken of the international scholarly literature on the identification and development of giftedness/talent in the physical domain, to establish the scope of current knowledge in the area. To identify relevant research, a search that involved the creation of a search string and the manual examination of the titles and abstracts of potentially relevant research, was conducted using two databases—Web of Science Core Collection and SportDiscus—and six inclusion/exclusion criteria (i.e., relevance to identification or development of physical giftedness/talent, an empirical study, publication in a reputable academic peer-reviewed journal, publication from 2000 to 2021, an English language publication, and authorship by scholars based in any part of the world). The 101 journal articles that met the inclusion/exclusion criteria were analyzed for key details, including the year of publication, methodological approaches, participants, and major findings. The five broad themes that emerged from the findings of these articles related to conceptions of physical giftedness/talent, identification characteristics/criteria, factors associated with identification, identification methods, and talent development interventions. An outline and discussion of the key issues and trends in the research, along with some recommendations for future research, conclude the systematic review.

Is a cyberathlete an athlete? Brazilian athlete perspectives

“…Factors that contribute to an athlete specializing in a sport include: enjoyment of the sport, career aspirations, and coach/teacher influence (Popkin et. al., 2019;Jung, 2022). All of them started their competitive practice during adolescence, thus confirming the proposal by Bompa (2015) and Weineck (2019) aiming for an age range between 12 and 14 years as the most appropriate for young people to start participating in the training of a given modality, moment when there is also maturity to participate in competitive events.…”

“…By the narratives, it is observed that when athletes from the Olympic sports and esports are outstanding and specialized in their modalities, they start being submitted to long-term training processes to reach the major competitions. The step denominated high-performance training is a stabilization phase to coordinate the skills which the main characteristic is dominating motor actions with accuracy and economy, attaining its peak from the age of 17-18 years (Balyi, Way and Higgs, 2013;Jung, 2022). Popkin et al (2019) corroborates that sport participation offers multiple benefits, however there is concern that early sport specialization may lead to adverse health and social effects, mostly overuse injuries and burnout, in a perception that developing athletes can reach their peak performance and gain a competitive advantage.…”

Birthplace and Birthdate Effect during Talent Process in Professional Soccer Academy Players

“…In all of the aforementioned phases, knowing the characteristics of the players and the factors behind their composition is crucial for understanding the process of sporting growth. A review of the different factors influencing the qualities of professional players has suggested that these factors be classified into innate, acquired, and contextual categories [15,[40][41][42].…”