Proposal for a New Sports Talent Identification System Based on the Tracking Phenomenon of Height

Abstract

In sports talent discovery in Japan, a system has been built to effectively support athletes with contact maintained between regional and central sports organizations. However, while a certain effect has been achieved with this system, much still depends on tacit knowledge. That is, a discovery system based on scientific evidence has not yet been established. The system is especially lagging in terms of approaches from the field of growth and development research. The only such approach, as found by Fujii, is that height and athletic ability are independent phenomena, and if one wants to discover exceptional sports talent it is necessary to think about height and athletic ability independently. In this study, we attempted to analyze the tracking of tall and short heights in the junior (school-age) period from the perspective of physical growth science, by applying the application of the wavelet interpolation model. The results showed that a tracking phenomenon is seen with a high probability (about 90%) for both tall and short heights. This makes it possible to identify who will be tall and short in the future. Assessing the athletic ability of tall and short people independently and proposing a system that screens for people with high athletic ability can contribute to building a new system for the discovery of sports talent.