'Gut feel' measures where science cannot go
Issue: Volume 29 Number 3
It was once all down to the person on the sidelines or seated, usually alone, in the stands. For a century or more the job of finding the next generation of elite sports people in Australia was left to the junior coach or talent scout, employing decades of experience, observing, comparing, making notes and finally coming up with the crucial recommendation: ‘This one’s got what it takes’.
Changes began after the Olympic movement shook off the last vestiges of amateurism and the quest for gold medals and world championship titles became closely allied to national pride and wellbeing. Suddenly it became important for Australia to compete with reasonable hopes of success across a much wider range of sports than ever before.
With a population tiny in comparison with many other nations, it became imperative that no-one was missed in the relentless search for talent. New, more scientific methods of identification were brought into play.
It is an approach in which Australia is a world leader. As the General Manager, National Talent Identification and Development at the Australian Sports Commission, Jason Gulbin, says: ‘We can’t just rely on the gut feelings of coaches and scouts because with a small population and we need to maximise the probability of getting a result. Instead of 10 people vying for selection in any particular event for our well populated competitors, we may have only three – so those three had better be good.’
Rather ominously he adds: ‘If the United States ever adapted aspects of our system rather than their dominant collegiate pathway, we would have huge problems keeping pace internationally.’
But while scientific testing can vastly reduce the possibility of a potentially elite athlete being overlooked, there is general agreement that the experience and gut feelings of people on the ground will always play a part. Gulbin says that science’s role is to separate the good performers from the potentially great ones.
‘At the Australian Institute of Sport we are dealing with world benchmarks and Olympic medals and that’s quite different from finding someone who is going to win a national junior championship,’ he says. ‘For instance, I could look at 20 cyclists riding past me at 20km/h and they will all look like smooth riders, comfortable on the bike, low into the frame, but which ones have the aerobic and anaerobic capacities, the speed endurance and the power, to achieve at world level – that’s where testing comes in.’
Once science has found those capable of elite performance, the coach’s ‘eye’ becomes increasingly important. ‘The coach will have all the data, but what can’t be measured is the athlete’s determination to succeed, their ability to be coached,’ he says. ‘That can only come through interviews and observation, but these are just as critical to the outcome’.
The Performance Manager Triathlon at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), Andrew Logan, is in broad agreement. ‘Testing gives you a good indication of the raw material, but physiological characteristics and anthropometric profiling are just part of it,’ he says. ‘The athlete has to really want to do it, have the hunger to achieve, the determination and the ability to ride the roller coaster though good times and bad. How do you measure that?’
Logan, whose background also includes road cycling, both as an athlete and coach, and positions with swimming and winter sports, says it is often the less obvious prospects who come though at elite level. ‘Some of the people who were outstanding at junior level, suddenly can’t cope in the elite environment when the pressure is on – they have had it too easy,’ he says.
‘Those on the second and third rungs have had to battle for every scrap of success and are sometimes more determined – their work ethic and application to training and competition can be greater and more focused. They want it more than the person with the abundance of talent.’
‘There will always be people working in sport who will come across individuals who, at 14 will not be up with their peers, but through their behaviour and attitude will show the hunger to succeed.
‘Bradley McGee is an Olympic medallist in cycling and a professional in Europe. When he was at a talent camp in 1991 at the age of 14 he did not match up to his peers in performance, but he showed by his attitude and determination, backed by some scientific data, that his will to achieve was greater than some of the others.’
The search for talent sometimes involves elite performers in one sport switching to another. For Dana Faletic, an Olympic medallists in rowing, cycling had been a cross-training and social exercise, yet when she tested in the AIS laboratory her results on the bike exceeded every other female tested in the previous 25 years. She is now a prospect for qualification in the time trial for Beijing.
‘Coach’s recommendations, coupled with testing, are allowing us to find athletes who want new challenges or who are competing in sports where Australia is already strong, who will transfer into events where our talent level is thin,’ Gulbin says.
A sport that does not chase Olympic medals, but which is nevertheless a hugely significant part of the national sporting psyche is Australian Football. At its elite level the Australian Football League is fully professional and ultra-competitive, resulting in the establishment of an annual draft to ensure an equitable spread of talent over the 16 clubs.
The Manager AFL Talent and International Manager, Kevin Sheehan, says while the impetus came with the expansion of the league to Brisbane and Perth in the early 1980s, there was already concern that the existing league structure favoured the richer clubs. ‘Under that system less than half the [then 12] clubs had won premierships in the previous 20 years,’ he said.
‘In the 20 years since the draft was introduced 10 teams have won premierships, 13 have contested grand finals and every one has competed in at least one finals series. We now have a managed competition with the potential for equal competitiveness on the playing field through the draft, supported by a salary cap.’
The draft system, copied and modified from American models, begins each year with an average of 1700 nominations of 17 and 18-year olds from the states. Working on the recommendations from scouts and coaches, the AFL refines this to 75 who attend a draft camp at the AIS where they undergo ‘the most intensive job interview imaginable,’ Sheehan says.
The data collected is condensed into a DVD which is then circulated to the clubs. Around 120 more hopefuls are subjected to lesser tests in their home states. The players then go into a much publicised draft, which begins with the bottom club in the previous season’s competition having first pick and so on through several rounds until the clubs have filled their requirements. A later rookie draw allows clubs to take on borderline players for 12 months or two years to monitor their development.
Sheehan says the system is not perfect. ‘No system can be,’ he says. ‘Even if we delayed the draft to age 19 or 20, we would still get some wrong because the gap between state leagues and the AFL is so great. But generally we get it about 80 per cent right and that’s a good average.’
Talent identification facts
- Australia’s small population requires a world’s best practice talent identification system in order for us to compete strongly at Olympic Games and World Championships.
- Talent identification involves ever more sophisticating scientific testing, but some attributes, such as determination and will to succeed, can only be assessed by expert coaches and talent scouts.
- Advanced testing and selection procedures not only assist in the search for international success but can contribute towards more competitive environments, and therefore improved spectacles, in professional national competitions such as the AFL.
- Testing and coaches’ recommendations can also assist with the transfer of an elite sportsperson from one code to another, improving Australia’s success rate in a greater spread of sports.
- While scientific testing and measurements will play an increasingly important part in talent identification, the expertise of the coach or talent scout will always be needed to assess the imponderable ‘It’ factor.
