Developing Sport Expertise, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 3

HOW GOOD ARE WE AT PREDICTING ATHLETES' FUTURES?

JÖRG SCHORER AND MARIJE T. ELFERINK-GEMSER

 

In medieval times, common people as well as lords and kings believed that augurs and seers were able to tell us the future through the use of numerology, palm reading or crystal balls. Although these practices have been discounted, predicting the future is still widely used in many domains, perhaps none so widely as sport. Predicting an athlete's future performance is largely based on the idea of a talent formula, hypothetically grounded in pure scientific evidence and consisting of a number of predictors. Although this approach has increased our knowledge of what might distinguish highly talented athletes from their less skilled counterparts, ...