sports show: Professor Kleinert, the sports world still has the “Valieva case” at the Olympic Games in Beijing fresh in the back of its mind. Should the lesson be that there must be a minimum age for young people in top-class sport?
Jens Kleinert: “I am basically in favor of a minimum age. The great importance and the large media presence of the Olympic Games can represent an extreme burden. The pressure that the young athletes put on themselves and also feel from the outside can be immense. This does not only go psychosocial stress, but also a training pressure, i.e. exceptional physical stress.
Young people in particular have not always learned how to deal with such pressure factors. Sometimes the personality grows more slowly than the body, so it needs more time to adapt. This time and rest is hardly given in view of major media events. After all, coaches and supervisors are caught between the pressure to succeed and the need to protect their young athletes. A clear regulation would also relieve this group.”
Which minimum age do you think is appropriate?
smaller: “It’s not possible to give a general answer because the physical and mental requirements vary greatly from sport to sport. But, in my opinion, the age limit of 16 is the right thing to do.”
Where do you see the age-relevant differences in the types of sport – mainly in terms of physical exertion?
smaller: “Sports certainly differ in this problem. The advantages of a child’s body are often greater in gymnastic and acrobatic sports, which intensifies the problem here. Individual sports are also naturally much more problematic than team sports, in which young players also experience pressure, but After all, sports in which top performances are still possible in the late 20s or mid-30s, such as some endurance sports, are less relevant.
However, top performance in old age is sometimes also a question of career planning. Very early expertise with extreme scope often leads to rapidly increasing performance, but can also severely impair the sustainability of performance. The question of the optimal career path has still not been clarified and of course every sport is different.”
The minimum age of 16 years has already been introduced in gymnastics – is that a good thing?
smaller: “In gymnastics there was a need for action earlier than in other sports, because the sport has special conditions. From a physical point of view, children or young adolescents are favored in many exercises because of their strength-load ratio. Furthermore, the very early career start in childhood and the Extreme training scopes to already high technical ability among many very young competitive gymnasts.
Especially among women, younger and younger athletes are appearing at the top of the world. The associations or unions had to react to protect the girls physically and psychologically. In my opinion, artistic gymnastics has not suffered from this. On the contrary, the importance of the artistic components and the charisma have increased in recent years, which also increases the attractiveness of the sport to some extent.”
The television pictures at Valiewa suggested that, above all, her human and psychological care was lacking. What do you recommend for the children who are on their way to the spotlight? Should they be given mental trainers or sports psychologists at an early stage?
smaller: “In principle, it is already important when supporting young competitive athletes to strengthen personality development, improve stress management, and teach communication techniques and social skills. In NRW, for example, the NRW Sports Foundation has been supporting the “mentaltalent” initiative for 15 years German Sport University Cologne, in which young top athletes are supported.
There are similar programs in a few other federal states and it is hard to imagine life without them. It is just as important that the adult environment, from the trainer to the father, see the problem and are sensitive to signs of overload and also know where help is offered, namely best from sports psychological experts who work with clubs or associations work. And we also have to see the pressure that associations or sports organizations put on the trainer. Pressure to succeed is okay, but you have to teach skills to deal with it in all areas.”
In the case of the Russian figure skaters, the very young Olympic champions from 2014 and 2018 then disappeared from the scene, none of them were there in Beijing. How important is the psychological support of the athletes even after early and great successes?
smaller: “Of course, psychosocial care is also very useful after a major event. Defeats have to be processed and properly classified. But successes can also represent a burden due to renewed pressure to succeed or vice versa lead to a lack of motivation. Often after the events there is a phase of re-finding and the reorientation.
Talking to people you know, your close personal environment or even the sports psychologist can also help here. But the fact that young winners are disappearing from the Russian system is more likely to have systemic reasons. Presumably more value is placed on exploiting young potential as quickly and massively as possible than on promoting constant, holistic development.”
What is the best way to achieve this constant development?
smaller: “I believe that only athletes who are constantly and holistically developing can only do top-level sport for a long time. Of course, extreme expertise in certain techniques or physical components is important, but physical and psychosocial balance is just as important, and an optimal one is just as important Regeneration control, maybe even longer breaks in which the personality develops and things come into play that are often neglected in a competitive sports career.
Recognize your own abilities and needs outside of competitive sports, live friendships or partnerships, find your way. The path of many renowned top athletes is characterized by these phases or by the fact that these things do not disappear completely.”
In general, how can you keep the pressure from outside as low as possible in top-class sport among young people and keep the joy of sport as great as possible?
smaller: “The important thing is the system and the young people themselves. From the system side, rules and politics help, which relieve the trainers and thus also the athletes. This is not just a minimum age, but also other forms of youth protection depending on the sport, as we sometimes have in team sports.The provision and publicizing of support offers such as “mentaltalent” is also an important component in order to be able to offer sustainable help if the worst comes to the worst.
On the part of the young people, it is important to build up stress resilience, i.e. to impart skills and resources in order to learn to deal with pressure and to represent their own needs. Perhaps the most important thing, however, is that young people, trainers and parents keep asking themselves whether enjoying sport is the priority. When pressure, fear, tension and frustration prevail despite support and help, the time has probably come to stop competitive sport.”
The interview was conducted by Christian Hornung.