Russell Smith                                                                                                      6/10/10

Sports Development

The Development Continuum

Sports development has evolved over the last 20 years and is an important part of today’s sports industry. The effectiveness of sports development has a direct impact on many current issues in sport including the performance of athletes at major events, healthy living and developing key life skills. Sports development is about positive change through the use of initiatives. In order to create new effective initiatives we need to understand and evaluate previous initiatives. So I am going to examine three different initiatives, from three of the four sections in the sports continuum triangle; foundation, participation, performance, and excellence. First I’m going to describe the definitions of the sections the development continuum triangle.

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Foundation is the early development of sporting components and skills upon which all later forms of sports developments are based, e.g. throwing, catching, hand eye coordination. This typically refers to school sport. Participation refers to sport undertaken primarily for fun, enjoyment, and often at performing at basic levels of competition. They get involved in sport for the sake of it. Performance signifies a move from basic competence into a more structured form of competitive sport at club or country level. Excellence is about reaching the top and applies to performers at the highest level. The theory of Development Continuum ...

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