Young sports talent given every chance to blossom

By COLIN KAY*

An article in the Herald headlined "Blame the schools for our mediocrity" must be challenged. The points about the neglect of young sporting talent raised by the writer, Peter Jessup, would have been valid two or three years ago, but considerable change has taken place in many secondary schools and in the high-performance system.

As Arthur Lydiard has said, there is talent around every street corner, and that talent is now being identified and given every chance to blossom.

Principles now being employed closely follow those set up in Australia over the past 20 years. I am grateful for the way the New South Wales Institute of Sport, the Queensland Academy of Sport and the Australian Institute of Sport have, in recent years, shared many of their highly successful approaches.

New Zealand is still a decade behind, but the endeavours put in place through the New Zealand Academy of Sport and the talent feeding of the Peter Snell Institute of Sport should result in major success soon in a variety of sports.

Already we have seen the exploits of Valerie Adams, from Southern Cross College, Mangere, and her coach, Kirsten Hellier, in winning the world junior shot put title and a silver medal at the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

This was born of a strengthening athlete-coach support structure. The foundations are being laid for similar success stories.

The great record of Australian teams and athletes has positioned Australia as one of the leading nations in sport. This success flows from a combination of factors - a broad base of talent, endless inspiration, mental and physical fortitude and resilience, and the country's innate passionate love of all things sport.

Combine this with superb coaching, talent identification and development, born of a steady increase in federal and state government funding to high-performance sport, and Australia has created a sporting environment second to none.

New Zealand has the same grassroots qualities. Over the years, however, that potential has not been nurtured in the same way. Consequently, the results have not been the same.

The issue is not entirely about funding, although an increase in appropriately targeted funding will make a significant impact. It is equally important that the blueprint is right from its inception.

The advent of the Academy of Sport is a definite step in this direction. And the Peter Snell Institute of Sport is dedicated to supporting this task through identifying and supporting school-age talent and, just as importantly, supporting the coaching of this young talent.

The Graham Report, which reviewed sport and recreation in New Zealand, stated that the key aspects of an effective plan included full consultation, constructive planning, effective implementation, greater use of research and existing facilities, and, most importantly, an emphasis on coaching and talent identification.

By addressing these fundamental problems, New Zealand is in the position of establishing and maintaining a wider base of sporting talent - and one where financial support is not given just to the top end.

The Peter Snell Institute of Sport, through its work in identifying and supporting promising young talent, has now awarded more than 40 scholarships to athletes aged 9 to 18. The scholarships are grants for help with coaching, travel, equipment, sports science and sports medicine costs.

The institute has also developed a co-ordinated talent-identification programme - Talent Search - in schools, with the help of ASB Bank College Sport. Already more than 20 secondary schools are involved in talent search, conducting simple sports science tests on their pupils.

Some great raw talent has been uncovered, often in sports in which the young people had never even had the opportunity of participating.

Nominations for scholarships are also forwarded by coaches and schools through more traditional talent spotting.

A further 20 schools are interested in taking part in the talent search programme. General interest is growing rapidly.

Developments in talent identification are being supported by the Academy of Sports' efforts to create a far better structure for supporting and developing our coaching resources.

The pathway to success is now in place. The Peter Snell Institute of Sport is identifying talent, helping the development of that talent, and then ensuring a smooth transition into the high-performance programmes developed by the Academy of Sport.

The institute will, in time, have a national reach. It is largely focused on the upper North Island, but its blueprint will soon also operate in the Christchurch region.

There has been a huge need in the sporting system to identify and nurture our sporting talent at the pre-elite level. We need to keep producing at the grassroots school level, otherwise we will be left further behind in the international sporting arena.

This will require a long-term commitment to talent identification and also to development, and a similar commitment to coaching.

* Colin Kay is chairman of the Peter Snell Institute of Sport.