Kristoffer Henriksen

Successful talent development in track and field: considering the role of environment

Track and field includes a number of high‐intensity disciplines with many demanding practices and represents a motivational challenge for talented athletes aiming to make a successful transition to the senior elite level. Based on a holistic ecological approach, this study presents an analysis of a particular athletic talent development environment, the IFK Växjö track and field club, and examines key factors behind its successful history of creating top‐level athletes. The research takes the form of a case study. Data were collected from multiple perspectives (in‐depth interviews with administrators, coaches and athletes), from multiple situations (observation of training, competitions and meetings) and from the analysis of documents. The environment was characterized by a high degree of cohesion, by the organization of athletes and coaches into groups and teams, and by the important role given to elite athletes. A strong organizational culture, characterized by values of open co‐operation, by a focus on performance process and by a whole‐person approach, provided an important basis for the environments success. The holistic ecological approach encourages practitioners to broaden their focus beyond the individual in their efforts to help talented junior athletes make a successful transition to the elite senior level.

Professional Philosophy: Inside the delivery of sport psychology service at Team Denmark

Professional Philosophy: Inside the Delivery of Sport Psychology Service at Team Denmark The field of applied psychology has developed rapidly in Europe in the past four decades. In Denmark, the sports psychology profession has been characterized by a diversity of approaches with little overarching consensus on the professional philosophy and interventions strategies among consultants in the field. In 2008, Team Denmark established a sport psychology team with the aim to enhance the quality and consistency of applied sport psychology services. The team began their work by creating a professional philosophy. This paper describes the rationale, content, and implications of this philosophy, including: (a) basic beliefs and values; (b) theories of intervention and behaviour change; (c) objectives of the sport psychology intervention, (d) the content and focus of the interventions, and (e) sport psychological services and methods. High quality service requires coherence across all five levels of the philosophy. Implications of introducing the professional philosophy include a more unified service delivery across Denmark and the fact that sport psychology services are demanded more than ever in Danish elite sport.

Looking at success from its opposite pole: The case of a talent development golf environment in Denmark

The holistic ecological approach highlights the central role of the environment in talent development in sport and acknowledges that some sporting environments are more successful than others in nurturing athlete development. Case studies of successful athletic talent development environments (ATDEs) in Scandinavia have suggested that successful environments are unique but also share a number of features that determine their success. The present study tests this suggestion by applying the holistic ecological approach to the study of a struggling ATDE, which is a golf team in a sport academy in Denmark with limited success in producing senior elite athletes from among its juniors. Adopting a case study design, we collected data from multiple perspectives (in-depth interviews with administrators, coaches and athletes), from multiple situations (observation of training, competitions and daily life) and from the analysis of documents. We found that the struggling environment was characterised by features that are in opposition to those of successful environments; e.g.: a lack of supportive training groups and role models; little understanding from non-sport environment; no integration of efforts among different parts of the environment; and an incoherent organisational culture. This finding provides support to the idea that the previously suggested features of successful environments do indeed capture qualities that successful environments possess and less successful ones lack (at least within a fairly similar cultural setting such as Scandinavia). The investigation of struggling ATDEs from a holistic ecological perspective provides the sport psychology practitioner with a strategy to strengthen the environment.

Sport psychology at the Olympics: The case of a Danish sailing crew in a head wind

Performing your best at the Olympic Games is a unique and stressful challenge for all involved, including athletes, coaches, and sport psychology practitioners. This paper provides a descriptive account and personal reflections of a sport psychology intervention aimed at helping a sailing crew perform at the ultimate event. The paper describes the specific strategies the sport psychology practitioner used to help the two sailors prepare for, and perform at, the Olympics as well as to cope with their disappointment after the Games. While the preparation went smoothly, the crew experienced a significant head wind (metaphor for adversity) during the Olympics. The present case is an example of the scientist–practitioner. The intervention was based on a clear theory, the cognitive behavioural tradition, and came from an evidence-based perspective. After the Games, the intervention was evaluated methodically. Based on this evaluation (alongside several similar ones), the sport psychology team of Team Denmark has decided to assess the integration of mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches into service delivery and to include these perspectives in the teams professional philosophy. Key components of such interventions include staying in the present moment, accepting the multitude of thoughts and feelings that arise without necessarily acting on them, and clarifying personal values alongside a commitment to act on these values. These processes are no less important for the sport psychology practitioner who is expected to remain calm and focused—and to never bend even in the strongest wind.

Tales from the Future: A Narrative Investigation of the Imagined Career Paths of Young Athletes

Abstract Athletes’ paths to international sporting success are unique but always include a number of transitions within sport, as well as outside of it, which hold the potential for crisis or growth. Particularly the transition from talented junior to elite senior athlete plays a critical role in the overall athletic career. The present study is a qualitative inquiry using semistructured interviews as data. We asked eight young and very talented athletes to imagine they were at the end of a successful career in their chosen sport and invited them to describe how they got there. The qualitative interview strategy was narrative in its attempt to elicit how the young athletes made meaning of their endeavours through narratives, and biographical in its attempt to ask the athletes to describe their future career paths. We analysed the interviews as single case studies, subjected them to meaning condensation and then constructed the final narratives. Common features of the tales pertain to the fact that these athletes are still young and have yet to grasp the reality of what they are embarking on, which is clear from the simplicity and lightness that is portrayed in their perspectives. The athletes give little emphasis to the challenges and need of social support inherent in an athletic career. On the one hand, the poor preparation of the athletes for the time to come is worrying; on the other hand, the unworried lightness and optimism of the athletes’ stories could also be seen as a strength.

Psychological Momentum in Team Sport: An Intervention Program in Professional Soccer

Abstract This article presents an intervention program with an under-17 soccer team, in which a coach and a sport psychology consultant integrated training of psychological momentum (PM) into daily practice sessions. Starting out with basic description of PM, we proceed to describe how the intervention program was applied in a professional soccer team. The paper provides a detailed description of an 18 months intervention program that progressed from initiation of the program, group discussions, action plans, to on-pitch training of PM. The article finishes with reviewing under-17 coach and player reflections on the application of the intervention program.

Player-Driven Video Analysis to Enhance Reflective Soccer Practice in Talent Development.

Inthepresentarticle,weinvestigatetheintroductionofacloud-basedvideoanalysisplatformcalled PlayerUniverse(PU).Videoanalysisisnotanewperformance-enhancingelementinsports,butPU isinnovativeinhowitfacilitatesreflectivelearning.VideoanalysisisexecutedinthePUplatformby involvingtheplayersintheanalysisprocess,inthesensethattheyareencouragedtotaggameactions invideo-documentedsoccermatches.Followingthis,playerscangetvirtualfeedbackfromtheir coach.FindingsshowthatPUcanimproveyouthsoccerplayers’reflectionskillsthroughconsistent videoanalysesandtagging;coachesareimportantasrolemodelsandprovidersoffeedback;andthat theuseoftheplatformprimarilystimulateddeliberatepracticeactivities.PUcanbeseenasasource ofinspirationforsoccerplayersandclubsastohowanalyticalplatformscanmotivateandenhance reflectivelearningforbetterin-gameperformance. KEywoRDS Deliberate Play & Practice, Design Research, Motivation, Reflective Practice, Self-Awareness, Video Analysis,

Developing a High-Performance Culture: A Sport Psychology Intervention From an Ecological Perspective in Elite Orienteering

Organizational culture is an emerging topic in sport psychology and recent literature has argued that creating and maintaining high-performance cultures is a key function of the sport psychologist. This article describes a long-term intervention aimed at creating a winning culture in a national orienteering team that took place as an integrated part of the athletes’ training and competition environment. The intervention involves three stages: unfreeze (creating survival anxiety and motivation for change), learning (designing new values and strategies), and refreeze (implementing these values in the identity of the team). The case study may produce a much-needed set of guidelines to inform the process of culture change.