Discuss the various systems for nurturing elite sports talent

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Discuss the various systems for nurturing elite sports talent

There are various systems in the UK and other countries for nurturing elite sports talent, which differ from country to country and tend to reflect the political and cultural beliefs of that country’s government. Some of these are decentralised and therefore organised by local committees, whereas others are highly centralised where government takes control of all sporting issues. Other systems vary in terms of funding and success rates.

China is an example of a country of which the sports talent system is highly centralised. The country currently supports approximately 23,000 athletes through their sporting careers; this can be seen as good because it is giving athletes the best possible chance in global games, thus increasing the amount of gold medals won in games such as the Olympics and bringing pride to that country. Zhang Yining, the Olympic tennis table player, has never bought anything in terms of sports equipment since he started playing table tennis. This shows the effectiveness of the system China have and how the individual doesn’t need to be able to be wealthy in order to reach the elite level, unlike other countries. For example, in the UK, there is no major system for catering for grass roots level so that they do not have to buy anything themselves. The effectiveness of a centralised system is also shown by France’s INSEP programme, which caters for elite athletes and helps them reach their potential. However, it can be argued that the government should be focusing on other things rather than sport, such as education or poverty and so the money could go to much better things. On the other hand, if you put money into sport, you are more likely to get money out and it does provide the best athletes. At the other end of the scale is America, of which most sports are privately funded and decentralised with the exception of the Olympic games. Despite this, America still has strong sports teams and this shows that centralisation of sport isn’t essential in order to get amazing athletes. However, this can be seen as bad because it may indicate a lack of pride for the countries’ sports teams and it is also less effective.

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Countries also use national academies and training camps in order to nurture their elite athletes, for example the UK Sports Institute which national squads use to train and improve their performance. This has its advantages for a country, as it puts their best athletes somewhere with the best facilities, equipment and coaches and this therefore gives them the best possible chance. However, it can also be seen as detrimental to a country because if all funding and emphasis is on improving elite athletes’ performance, it ignores the grass roots level provision. Also, in countries such as China and India, young ...

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