Talent Selection and the Present? The Way Sports Preconditions Are Determined in Slovakia

Abstract

Talent selection includes a variety of issues that may be classified into several domains following one another (talent determination, talent searching, talent selection, and so forth). One of the most important domains is the determination of sports preconditions – talent (particularly from the viewpoint of assessment and prognosis). The assessment of sports preconditions is based on four domains: somatic parameters, manipulative skills, decision making, and conditioning. The example of the Slovak Republic is presented to demonstrate how sports preconditions are assessed in 6-year-old children. In the pilot study data were collected from 1,669 children (boys: n = 880; girls: n = 789) who performed 12 physical fitness tests. The children attended three types of school: schools with large numbers of students, schools with medium numbers of students, and schools with small number of students, respectively. Data collected from children who were from eight Slovak regions were compared by gender and region in particular physical fitness tests using the contingency tables