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Did You Know:

“If it ain’t broke, fix it ”. World and Olympic Gold Medalists’ Approach toExpertise Maintenance

According to a study by Durand-Bush and Salmela (2002), maintaininghigh level performance at the Olympic and World Championship levels oftenimplies learning new skills and tactics not originally needed to attain gold-medal status.

Reviews of several studies on the development of expert performancein sports have shown that very little research has been conducted on themaintenance of high level performance. In the study by Durand-Bush andSalmela (2002), four different stages of athlete development were noted:Sampling, specializing, investment, and maintenance. However, the mainpurpose of the study by was to determine which factors contributed to the

development and maintenance of the highest levels of sport over time. The participants in this study consisted of 10 athletes, six women and

four men, between the ages of 19 and 36. All of the athletes in the studyhad won at least two gold medals at separate Olympic or WorldChampionship events. The participants included team sports as well asindividual sport athletes. The requirement of each athlete to possess at leasttwo gold medals was essential for the examination of maintenance of highlevel performance over time. Each athlete was contacted and informed of the details of the study. A semi-structured interview was conducted witheach athlete and served two functions: 1.) to determine factors involved indevelopment and maintenance of their expertise and 2.) To verify

information obtained from other sources such as parents and coaches.Analysis of the information obtained in each interview did not begin until allinterviews were conducted and verified. The analytical process includedbreaking information down into meaning units and subunits and then codingeach of these units and fitting them even further into categories to obtainsome level of objectivity.

An extensive procedure was followed in order to increase internal andexternal validity of the study. Providing meaningful descriptions of findings,triangulating the data by interviewing coaches and parents, obtainingadditional documents about the athletes, debriefing with peers, andauthenticating the interviews with the athletes were all procedures aimed at

increasing internal validity. Establishing the external validity involved givingdescriptions of the method in order to make sufficient comparisons to otherstudies on development of expertise.

 The results of this study focused primarily on the investment andmaintenance stages of expertise development. The investment period wasdefined as the stage when the athletes focused almost solely on the sport inwhich they would achieve a gold medal. The maintenance period consistedof the time between the first and second gold medal. In each of these

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stages, four categories were closely examined: context, personalcharacteristics, training, and competitions. Findings of the most importantfactors for the development of expertise in each of these categories weresimilar in both the investment and maintenance stages of expertise acrossall athletes. There was one finding that was a continued theme in the

maintenance stage that was absent during the investment period. Withinthe category of personal characteristics, athletes reported an increasingneed to be creative and innovative within their respective sport. It wasdeemed important by several athletes in the study to be able to develop newskills and tactics for the purpose of maintaining a competitive edge. Oneathlete spoke of the importance of keeping and “open mind”. This personalcharacteristic, coupled with characteristics such as self-confidence,motivation, and competitiveness, which were common to the investmentstage, provides great insight into the maintenance of high level performanceat the Olympic and World Championship levels.

Learning new skills and tactics by means of creativity and innovation is

necessary for maintaining expertise at Olympic and World Championshiplevels. Simply adhering to old methods of training may not be enough tocontinue to compete and achieve gold medals. Expert athletes in a varietyof other sports domains are likely to benefit from the information found inthis study as well. One practical application of the need for creativity andinnovation may be seen by examining pitchers in baseball. The soleconcentration of a pitcher is to get batters out. By experimenting with newgrips on the ball that contradict conventional wisdom on how the execute apitch, a pitcher may discover that he has developed a new way to make theball dive out the strike zone. Of course, it would take a degree of courage tobring this type of creativity into game settings. Though, it may be necessary

for an elite, established pitcher to continue his career as such despite losingarm strength with age.

Reference

Durand-Bush, N. & Salmela, J.H. (2002). The development and maintenanceof expert athletic performance: Perceptions of world and Olympic

champions.  Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 154-171.