Athletics: Leading juniors lacking senior moments

Jacko Gill set numerous records and won multiple shot put world age-group titles but has not found the transition to the senior ranks so easy. Photo / PHOTOSPORT

Following on from the Herald’s series on raising a champion, former Olympian Steve Hollings has looked into why some athletes make it and others don’t

It's hard to escape the fact a high proportion of elite junior track and field athletes fail to progress to senior ranks.

There are many reasons for this but the drop-off is alarming.

My research showed 74 per cent of New Zealand athletes who competed at a world junior championships held every two years since 1986 failed to represent New Zealand as a senior athlete.

On top of that, two-thirds of New Zealand athletes who won a medal or made a final at the junior worlds did not go on to represent New Zealand at senior level.

But those who won medals as a junior and stayed in the sport were more likely to succeed at senior international level.

The situation at the world youth championships for athletes aged 17 and 18 is even bleaker.

New Zealand has had 120 individuals (66 women and 54 men) compete at the eight youth worlds from 1999-2013 and, of those, only 10 have represented New Zealand at senior level. And only three of the 120 have gone on to represent New Zealand at the Olympics.

Even the step up to the junior worlds is poor. Only 28 of those 120 competed at the next level up in international competition, which means almost three-quarters of all New Zealand athletes who went to a world youth championships did not realise their potential and advance their career.

It's not a problem restricted to just New Zealand.

In Russia, research showed about two-thirds of winners and medallists at the junior worlds "did not go on to achieve any serious success at senior level".

The transition from junior to senior level is a complex process and is described as the most difficult and critical in an athlete's career. Those who can navigate it successfully often go on to achieve success.

Athletes who became successful were usually committed to a clearly defined and realistic goal, achieved early success at senior level and had a single dominant identity and key strength.

Those who didn't tended to have competing demands and tensions in their social, academic/career lives, including conflicts with their coach and training environment, injuries, lacked guidance and management from within the sport and held a belief international competition was "a bridge too far".

Models have been developed that try to address the transition from junior to senior ranks but there are other factors which also come in to play, like not experiencing early international success, coach incompatibility, lack of access to training facilities, event selection decisions, ill-defined competition pathways, a lack of out-of-season competitions, a fragmented national competition calendar and when an athlete is born (Relative Age Effect).

A successful strategy to address this relies on:

• Facilitating/Counselling on choices allowing for different combinations of high performance and lifestyle.

• Developing an athlete tracking and monitoring system.

• Regulating for psychological excellence including realistic and adaptable goal setting.

• Creating an adaptive motivational environment that focuses on holistic development.

• Providing appropriate competition pathways.

• Coordinating and providing needs-based social, financial and organisational support.

• Preparing coaches to be more effective in meeting the needs of athletes in this phase.

The model provides a template to guide national bodies, coaches and parents to transition elite junior athletes to successful seniors.

Although it has a New Zealand focus and is based on track and field athletes, the model could be suitable for other sports and in other countries.

• Dr Stephen Hollings competed for Great Britain in the 3000m steeplechase at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In 2014, he completed his PhD on the transition from elite junior athlete to successful senior athlete. He is a research associate with the Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand at AUT and is the statistician for Athletics NZ.