Talent Development

Vertical Progression, Horizontal Coherence. Sounds tricky? Well it’s actually pretty simple. Read on.

Talent can be tough to define. But while we may struggle to define it, we all know “talent” when we see it. With mountain biking, regardless of discipline, talent is displayed by riders of totally different shapes, sizes, and backgrounds. Racing against the clock highlights any weakness and allows some of our smallest units of time, hundredths & thousandths of seconds, to elevate talented individuals to legendary status. Many of these legends, though, are only just as talented as their peers, maybe even less-so depending on what you choose to measure, the beauty of sport is that the equaliser board that controls “talent” can have its core elements slide up or down, amplified or dampened and still achieve the same functional outcome. There is no one body type or cookie-cutter recipe that leads to success. That doesn’t however, mean talent can’t be nurtured. So, what should talent development in Downhill MTB consist of?

While “development” implies youth or a young chronological age, it’s not the most accurate picture of what TD is all about. We can of course help a rider at any age or stage of development improve. However, the importance of doing the right kind of development from a young age for the aspiring racer is now more sought after than ever, in no small part due two factors. Firstly equipment – a young rider can now get a very capable MTB that fits them even when they still don’t qualify to ride roller coasters. Secondly, access – the world over we have groups of riders with bike parks, pump-tracks and trail networks sprawling from towns, cities and on to the wilderness.

If talent is universal but opportunity is not; then mountain-biking’s growth is slowly closing the opportunity gap with both equipment and terrain being more accessible. This growth amplifies the importance of understanding what development of talent means for MTB. Especially so for young riders that do aspire to race DH at the top level.

If talent is universal but opportunity is not; then mountain-biking’s growth is slowly closing the opportunity gap with both equipment and terrain being more accessible.

Aspirations are the critical component, as if we truly want to help a talented rider develop into a world class racer then they must have a deep love for the sport, away from competition, that underpins their aspirations in competition. Aspirations that come from the rider not the parent, club, team, or school form the cornerstone of the foundation that helps them develop from young racer to world cup winner. Too often the support network around a young rider who displays talent will want to prioritise the speed of development at the expense of the quality of that development.

It’s the latter though that will count long into an elite career and it’s the rider who had a stable support structure that allowed them to focus on but not solely prioritise bike riding that will make the most of the bumps and hurdles along the road to successful career.

With the introduction of a dedicated junior category at DH World Cups in 2013 a path to future elite success started to become clearer, at least in theory. It took a few seasons before junior men had to qualify for finals and thus create consistency in how effort and outcomes might be related, it then took another few seasons for the junior ladies to get their own category. But season on season as the junior categories solidified, the bigger teams started to realise that they could help create a pathway from junior to elite and the riders themselves now had a simpler path to qualify & get a shot at a race-run experience compared to the days when juniors had to race with the elites.

As the sport of DH is still in relative infancy and finances are quite top heavy this pathway, I’m talking about is still rough around the edges. That, though, is a blessing in poorly funded disguise as the more established sports of soccer, basketball, rugby or even motorsport have nightmarish sounding Early Specialisation-Talent ID, super Scouts that hunt down 4-year-olds and get their beaming parents to lock them into ten year contracts. DH and MTB in general doesn’t have that sort of culture or capital (for now) so those already involved in the sport from teams to coaches and parents have both an opportunity and a responsibility to do better. Taking the years of experience and research hard won in other sports and our own to help guide future DH champs to be the people & racers they want to be.

What does that guidance look like? Well, it should start with coherence, a common thread of understanding between all the people involved in the support network around the rider. That support network is the foundation, ever-present but always evolving, that allows the rider to progress. Like launching a missile from a platform! That vertical progression is best served when the foundation is made up of individuals that share a similar vision. Horizontal coherence if you want. They understand how a budding champion needs to have a coachable temperament, able to work in a team but has also cultivated that individual spark that drives prolific winners. The support network, especially parents, need to understand the difference between early focus & early specialisation in a sport.

With DH, early focus means still riding different cycling disciplines, still trying, and enjoying a variety of sports while keeping a constant eye on DH progression. Early specialisation means nothing but tunnel vision in one sport and with it comes the huge risk of poorly developed fundamental movement skills, skills the rider will later need to rely on to develop those physical qualities to push their DH performances to the limit as they mature.

Not forgetting the risk of poorly developed psychological skills. The support network needs coherence in their understanding of what needs to be developed both below and above the neck and how the two are inseparable. One model to help keep everyone involved on track would be the pillar system. Define the key pillars of performance for a DH rider and fill in their components. The building blocks of the foundation.

Building Pillars like these help riders, teams and their support networks deal with the ever-evolving race environment and the ever-present risk of injury. Bumps on the road if you will.

The bumps on the road to success are important, they create some of the most impactful experiences the rider can learn from.

The bumps on the road to success are important, they create some of the most impactful experiences the rider can learn from. Things like not qualifying at their first race, season ending crashes or financial difficulties. Guaranteeing learning from these experiences only occurs when the support network understands the challenges the athlete is facing, and the pillars are tailored to how the individual strengths and weaknesses of the rider need to be amplified or dampened so they can perform their best.

This means the pillars and their components won’t be crafted in the exact same way by each athlete. That amplifying and dampening has to be individualised, physical potential comes on the back of genetic traits, likewise that psychological toolbox could have been stacked full of quality coping skills or left bare depending on the environment and experiences of a rider’s childhood and early adulthood

Those nature vs. nurture problems are some of the most interesting talent development hurdles, especially for DH racers as unlike a certain playing position in rugby or basketball, American football or tennis you don’t have to be any particular size or shape to be the very best DH racer.

Trainable factors that are key to development do exist though, especially for Physical Potential. Being as strong as possible for example (for your weight) is very helpful; it allows a rider to maintain posture and balance with all of the impacts experienced on the bike; doing so with less worries about applying the right technique at the right time because fatigue is reduced and that strength reserve also means maintaining accuracy in movement when fatigue does start to creep in, basically pushing the genetic ceiling as high as possible.  This is where coherence from all the people involved in the process of talent development is again key; we may pinpoint strength as defining quality of elite performance but that doesn’t mean we should doggedly develop it to the detriment of other qualities at every stage of the process. What matters most three years into an elite career may not matter at all in your first-year racing juniors or for a 10-year-old frothing over YouTube videos & vice-versa.

Trainable too are the psychological skills, these characteristics and their tools probably have the largest impact on performance at the elite level. Often poorly understood & as a result seldom coached or developed systematically, the psychological toolbox needs to be developed by working back from the demands of a race-run. When the first of the final five beeps come before dropping into a race run, it’s the cool, calm but deeply focused mind that permits a crisp race run. When milliseconds matter, working back from the start gate and developing distraction control, goal setting, imagery skills, commitment, self-awareness, or effective feedback are the kinds of tools that allow a rider to develop deliberateness and consistency in their training that carries over to their race week processes and ultimately to the calmness that preparedness delivers in the start-gate.

The “love of the sport” is a critical pillar, it’s the raison d’etre, the driver behind the motivation to put in the quality hours of training. It’s something that’s hard to define and very individual to boot, so it’s easily neglected or put another way, easy to assume that because riding bikes is so much fun that the passion and love will always be there. But the intrinsic motivation provided by the love for riding needs to be nurtured. If you know the word “periodisation” as a fancy way to describe how coaches plan training blocks over time, then you may understand me when I tell you that “love for the sport” needs to be periodised into any talent development plan. Often you must plan to skid, send and slide your way down a mountain; just for the pure pleasure of it!

Technical mastery is probably the most complex of these pillars, it’s also the one that shines the brightest light on talent. When a young rider fluidly pops a double, hooks a berm and nose bonks their way out of the bike park – most of us would scream “ooh that’s talent”. However, it’s arguably the hardest pillar to coach. Providing endless questions. Will that rider still have those skills as they age and grow? Will repetitive practice or deliberate exposure to diverse terrain develop the deepest technical well?  What sort of challenge crushes a rider’s ability to execute techniques? The job of the support network is to help the rider cultivate deliberate technical practice that incorporates diverse opportunities for (think terrain) with repetition for challenge not just for the sake of repetition. The links between the psychological toolbox and technical training are clear, as it’s deliberate effort, diverse feedback, critical self-evaluation and a little sprinkle of imagery & goal setting that will help a rider push their technical skill set.

As we’ve already repeated coherence between everyone involved in a rider’s development is key. Physical maturity in the youth categories may be a key factor in results at that age; it’s evidently clear though that focusing on closing that physical gap at a young age by applying more physical training my pay in the short term but be ultimately counterproductive as a young rider may miss critical opportunities for technical mastery or have their love for the sport impacted.

These oscillations of what’s important, what qualities should be developed when, what the rider wants and needs at any given time and who is best positioned to help deliver this are all factors that are some-what controllable and certainly plannable. The life of an aspiring young racer is pieced into digestible chunks that our societies collectively sign up to, seasons, race calendars, school terms, holidays, and festive periods. Those pieces create windows of opportunity from which a long-term development plan can be crafted, and the right portions of each pillar amplified when it makes practical sense to do so!

The big goal may be DH World Championship gold, the process to get there should be crafted & shared between the rider, their family, teams, friends, clubs, schools, coaches, and anyone else with the potential for impact.

Gold medals come to those who master the equalizer board.

Knowing the right time to amplify the learning opportunities that wet days, fast friends or slippy dirt bring or how to dampen the negative impact of school exams by helping a rider develop their psychological toolbox is what talent development is all about. Exploiting what’s inherent in the rider’s environment and searching out ways to give them the challenges they don’t already get, with of course, continuous support. Gold medals come to those who master the equalizer board.