Selecting talented athletes: the shortcomings!

(Baonghean) - To develop high-performance sports (HSP), the selection and training of young athletes is extremely important, because if this is done well, the supply for the main team will be abundant. However, currently the selection of talented athletes is facing many difficulties.

Previously, the selection of talented athletes for high-performance sports had many advantages thanks to the selection system at the grassroots level. In football, since 2004, SLNA Club has built "centipede" points in the districts by signing contracts with officials and coaches working at the Cultural-Sports Centers in districts, cities and towns so that they can be responsible for selecting talents from the grassroots level through district-level children's and youth football tournaments and the annual Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth - Children's Football Tournament.

Up to now, SLNA has built 10 "centipede" points in Vinh City, Quynh Luu, Thai Hoa Town, Hung Nguyen, Yen Thanh, Thanh Chuong, Do Luong, Con Cuong, Anh Son, Cua Lo Town. As for other high-performance sports such as martial arts, athletics, volleyball, sepak takraw, shuttlecock kicking, petanque, swimming and diving, etc., before 2012, by signing contracts with officials and physical education teachers in districts and schools, the Provincial Sports Training and Coaching Center has maintained 30-45 amateur classes in localities in the province. From these amateur classes, through the screening process, the center will select talented athletes to supplement the provincial teams. Not only that, opening amateur classes also contributes to promoting the development of the grassroots sports movement and each locality also identifies its own strengths. For example, swimming, wrestling, and martial arts are very developed in Quynh Luu and Nam Dan districts, while volleyball is a strength of Hung Nguyen, Dien Chau, and Nghia Dan districts...

Training session of talented athletes of SLNA "furnace".

However, in recent times, in addition to football, the selection of talented athletes in other high-performance sports has encountered many difficulties. Since 2012, due to lack of funding from the province, the Provincial Sports Training and Coaching Center has had to stop amateur classes at the grassroots level. Mr. Dang Ngoc Kim - Director of the Quynh Luu District Sports Center said: "Previously, in Quynh Luu, there were amateur classes in athletics, martial arts (vovinam, karate) and swimming, which not only provided many talented athletes for the province but also made the movement of practicing these sports in the district develop strongly. However, since these classes were no longer available, the movement has also subsided and in the past 2 years, the district has not been able to introduce any truly talented athletes to the provincial teams."

With no more amateur classes, in order to maintain the quantity and quality of athletes, the Sports Training and Coaching Center has had to recruit talented athletes by sending coaches directly to the grassroots. In the past, many coaches had to travel to grassroots tournaments, schools, and even remote areas to select talented students for training. However, our province has a large area and a large population, and the center is responsible for 16 sports, while the number of coaches is currently quite small (35 people), so this job requires not only professional qualifications and sensitivity, but also enthusiasm and dedication from the coaches as well as good treatment.

In addition to having coaches go directly to the grassroots, the Provincial Sports Training and Coaching Center also selects athletes by asking sports officials in districts, physical education teachers in schools to introduce them, and through student sports tournaments. However, according to Mr. Nguyen Hoang Trung - Deputy Director of the Sports Training and Coaching Center, these methods are not very effective, because asking sports officials in districts, physical education teachers in schools to introduce them is only based on emotional relationships, without any binding responsibility, so it is just "happening or not".

The selection through tournaments also has many shortcomings! For the construction and development of young and talented athletes, an important factor is to create a playground of tournaments to help them participate in competitions, gain experience, evaluate the training process, thereby searching for and discovering talented athletes, to select and build youth teams. However, besides traditional sports tournaments such as Phu Dong Sports Festival, cross-country tournaments and some annual grassroots sports tournaments, our province has not yet organized other tournaments for students. The reason is that school sports in our province are not yet developed and have financial difficulties.

According to Mr. Nguyen Hoang Trung, in recent times, Nghe An's sports industry has missed out on many young sports talents. Many coaches confided that, in the past year, when taking their students to compete in national youth tournaments, they saw many athletes with Nghe An accents competing prominently in other teams, and they felt regretful that they had not discovered them in time.

Finding talented children is difficult, finding talented children who are willing to commit to sports is not a simple task, because many children and their families are not interested in becoming professional athletes because of the short career and many risks. In fact, there are many children with sports talent but after a period of training, they give up because they have more choices for future development, when currently colleges and universities open up many opportunities for children with average and good academic performance to study.

Nghe An Sports is making a strong move towards professionalization. However, for this process to be truly effective and more importantly, for the province's sports to continue to affirm its position on the national level, with more athletes winning medals in regional, continental and world tournaments, the work of selecting talented athletes needs to be paid more attention and focus. To do this, the province needs to soon issue policies and allocate funds to reopen amateur talent classes in districts and schools. In addition, it is necessary to promote socialization to attract funding sources to organize more tournaments for students to discover talented athletes; enhance the treatment regime for athletes so that they can confidently pursue a sports career and in the long term, it is necessary to promote the development of school sports to create a solid foundation for high-performance sports.

Minh Quan