In this episode, we catch up with Dr Steve Stannard, parent of successful athletes, a world-leading sport scientist and coach. Dr Steve is a successful athlete himself, representing Australia. Steve tells us the aspects that can improve a developing athlete’s chances of success from his own experience.
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25 | Developing Young Champion Athletes with Dr Steve Stannard
From the Performance Advantage blog · calebbottcher · 2020-12-01
Do you have a kid who wants to be a pro rider? Is someone in your family a gung-ho runner and eats, sleeps and breathes running? We all want our kids and athletes to be the best they can be, but being the best young athlete isn't the most important thing. If a young person really wants to be a pro athlete, they need to be good when they are older, and have a prosperous, healthy career. We need to give them support, but make sure they love their sport in the long run.
In this episode, we catch up with Dr Steve Stannard, parent of successful athletes, a world-leading sport scientist and coach. Dr Steve is a successful cyclist himself, representing Australia. Steve tells us the aspects that can improve a developing athlete’s chances of success from his own experience.
Steve raced in Europe in the early 90s, before completing his Masters and PhD in Australia. In 2003, he moved to New Zealand and has since observed an era of incredible cycling talent in Palmerston North. We talk to Steve about the numerous factors that he believes have contributed to such impressive successes and potential difficulties that young athletes and their parents can encounter. The resulting advice is essential to developing young athletes.
Steve begins by explaining that success breeds success. In the context of young athletes, if they are surrounded by other like-minded athletes, hard work and success will be normalised and the standard of competition will be raised. He states that longevity is key to success, for two reasons. The first is that statistically, the longer the athlete competes in sport, the more chances of success they will have. Secondly, that the longer we persist with something, the better we get at it.
We also discuss the controversial nature versus nurture argument. Whilst at the very top level of a sport, some physiological luck is required, we conclude that nurture is most important and that a very high level of performance can be reached purely by hard work. Because the rate of training adaptations varies between (and even within) athletes, longevity is still critical to ensure that they stay in the sport and keep improving as their trajectory can change.