For both Rice and Gretsky, enjoyment of their sport was integral to their development. This enjoyment drove them to practise alone or play active unstructured games with friends, related or unrelated to their sport. It also developed creativity in how they saw the game and contributed to feeding a strong intrinsic passion to improve.
I have found this passion in many athletes I have worked with over the years. The reasons for their enjoyment varies, from being outdoors to expressing themselves physically, being in a team environment, trying to master a skill or trying to achieve something. A key, consistent factor is that enjoyment is in some way related to their chosen sport, which drives their engagement and time‐on‐task. For this reason, I ask athletes I work with to identify and list what they enjoy and to regularly revisit and update their notes.
How much practice?
Over the past decade much has been written about the ‘10 000 hours rule’, which posits that 10 000 hours of practice is required to become expert in any field, such as sport, music, medical practice or teaching. The notion that 10 000 hours of practice will guarantee expertise was popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2011 book Outliers.9 Although this ‘rule’ is often cited, it is an oversimplification that has been taken far too literally. Early discussion on 10 000 hours of practice was generated by Anders Ericsson and colleagues when reviewing contributing factors to musical expertise.10 They found that by the age of 20 ‘expert’ pianists had accumulated approximately 10 000 hours of practice, compared with a total of about 2000 hours for amateur pianists.
In Ericsson's 2016 book Peak: secrets from the new science of expertise (co‐authored by Robert Pool), he observes that ‘unfortunately, the 10 000 rule — which is the only thing that many people today know about the effects of practice — is wrong in several ways’.11 Among the reasons he identifies are that the amount of practice to become expert ‘varies from field to field’ and that ‘not every type of practice leads to improved ability’. He also says that ‘anyone can improve, but it requires the right approach’.
In sport, the reality is that 10 000 hours of dedicated, deliberate practice is unlikely to be accumulated by late teenage years or age 20. Research also confirms that in many sports athletes achieve national representation or professional contracts with less than 10 000 hours of dedicated practice. Even for those with high volumes of practice, it is not the differentiating factor. Mindset will contribute to practice and make best use of the time invested.
Transferring accumulated hours of training into competition environments is something I have seen many athletes struggle with. Large volumes of training can also lead to mental fatigue and burnout, creating additional pressure that negatively impacts both people and performance. One of the more common referrals to performance psychology practices is to help athletes replicate training levels in competition. Mindset is the bridge linking training and performance.
Research insights
A meta‐analysis of a large number of studies concluded that deliberate practice accounted for about 18 per cent of sport performance overall. In elite‐level performers, deliberate practice accounted for only 1 per cent of variance in performance. Performers who reached a high level of skill did not tend to start their sport earlier than lower skill athletes.
In addition to deliberate practice, the study noted that other experiences may contribute to individual differences in performance. These include competition experience, play activities and possible participation in multiple sports during certain stages of development. Later specialisation may also reduce the incidence of injuries and psychological burnout. Specific psychological variables that could account for performance differences beyond deliberate practice include attention control, confidence, propensity to experience performance anxiety and aversion to negative outcomes.12
Many different paths
It is evident, then, that there are many different paths to becoming an elite athlete. An important 2016 paper suggested that in contrast to Ericsson's deliberate practice framework, in which linear sporting progression through time spent in practice is inferred, successful athletes follow complex, non‐linear, individualised routes to the top of their sport.13 They must adapt to anticipated and unanticipated developmental opportunities, setbacks and a range of transitions as they progress. The authors also noted that athletes who achieve a high level are differentiated by positive, proactive coping and a learning approach to challenges.
As alluded to, I have witnessed many individual paths to competitive arenas. I've worked with athletes who were early starters and progressed through the ranks, those who have had interruptions and late starters. What has enabled them to achieve their sporting goals has been a commitment driven by passion, outstanding support and an investment in mindset to deal with and learn from the challenges experienced on their journey. These are some of the factors that have enabled continued progression towards goals.
Matthew Syed, in his book Bounce: the myth of talent and the power of practice, emphasises how the power of practice, environment and mindset helped him become a British table tennis champion and Olympian.14 He recounts that a combination of circumstances contributed to his laying a foundation of many hours of playing table tennis, but that mindset was a key ingredient to his progression. He also admits that he had powerful advantages not available to hundreds of thousands of other youngsters. ‘What is certain,’ he writes, ‘is that if a big enough group of youngsters had been given a table at eight years of age, had a brilliant older brother to practice with, had been trained by one of the best coaches in the country (who coached nearby), had joined the only 24 hours club in the country, and practiced for thousands of hours by their early teens, I would not have been number one in England.’
When Matthew was 19, one of the greatest players in table tennis history, Chen Xinhua, from China, moved to England and became his coach. Matthew's new practice regime bore no relation to what he had seen or experienced previously, or even imagined. This ‘quirk of fate’, as he describes it, contributed to his ongoing development and fuelled his passion to strive harder.
Sometimes luck plays a role in sporting success. Meeting the right person at the right time may be all that is needed. Not working with a particular coach can be attributed to bad luck as much as bad choices. Working with a coach who has faith and is supportive can be due to luck or choice. It's a fine line between the two. Picking up an injury that limits opportunity can be just bad luck rather than bad management. A talent scout watching a game or event that happens to produce a standout performance is the kind of good luck that can go a long way to launching a sporting career.
These studies and stories emphasise that there is no single path to development. Playing a variety of sports at an early age to build engagement and enjoyment, maximising motivation and early development of mindset, is likely more important than is typically appreciated.
Patience and persistence
Aerial skiing is a complex sport. It is also one of the more challenging sports for Australians to excel in, given how much the climate limits opportunities for time‐on‐task in the snow (although water jumps play a big part in specific aerial training). Our geography likely contributes more to our international performance in swimming than in skiing, compared with, say, Switzerland, where the conditions are reversed. It's not about talent, but opportunity. In addition, minimal attention and few role models in the sport limits potential extrinsic motivation to become involved or excel in winter sports compared with other sports. So for Jacqui Cooper to become one of Australia's greatest Olympians and the first Australian woman to make five Olympic Games was a feat par excellence.
When I spoke to Jacqui about her journey she told me, ‘If you had to rate my talent it would have been zero out of 100. And that wasn't just my opinion — the coaches and