Navigating the Olympic journey—presenting a contemporary paradigm for elite-level youth athletes

Abstract

The global youth sports landscape continues to exhibit pronounced growth providing increasing and exciting opportunities for youth athletes to compete on the world’s sports stage. Likewise, there is a parallel growing concern whether the existing minimum age eligibility requirements (AERs) across the International Federations for youth participation in the Olympic Games are appropriate. For those sport disciplines that have AERs, the current age thresholds are largely variable and not fully scientifically informed, and the limited research and supporting evidence relied on are notably complicated by the distinctively vulnerable age range of concern. Adolescence is inherently dynamic and non-linear with asynchronous development of numerous physical, physiological, psychological and social attributes within and between individuals. Accordingly, each athlete’s personal development profile uniquely affects their own athletic development and corresponding performance and risk in sport. Whereas an apt discipline-specific or overall AER is arguably warranted, precisely where those respective limits should be sensibly established cannot be easily defined. What is more, an AER alone (although convenient) would not be sufficient in enabling …