Talent sport has gained a new dynamic in the last decade. The roads young athletes take on their dual career journey are increasingly bumpy and curvy. In this context, diversity, holistic athlete support and the system’s approach to winning are systemic factors which substantially impact the personal pathways of youngsters. This counts for sport schools in Europe as it counts for sport schools in Africa. Last week, TW1N had the honour to address two keynotes at the ISSC Conference of independent sport schools in Cape Town, South Africa.
In his first speech, TW1N Founder & CEO Wolfgang Stockinger illustrated the EU sport policy in the areas of dual career and talent development, presenting selected topic-specific examples of European approaches. Following, his second keynote zoomed in on the individual talent, offering alternative angles on junior athlete support by translating central ideas of Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy into dual career contexts:
“Human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships, or better: relatedness. Relatedness to oneself, to others, to one’s own actions. In dual career terms, meaning requires the constant re-definition of the personal relatedness to the extensive investments talents are willing to make. This link is the main precondition for a development that lives up to the potential slumbering within a person. If this link is not established, personal as well as athletic development will not only be limited but stays dependent of external factors. This cannot be the standard of talent development systems. Such systems are asked to build strategies that bring young people in touch with their actions and very own abilities which actually enable them to pursue these actions sustainably and successfully.”
Wolfgang Stockinger
Founder & CEO of TW1N
