Australian Sailing launches landmark Athlete Development Framework
by Australian Sailing 30 Apr 2021 08:59 BST
Mara Stransky (Laser Radial) - Australian Sailing Team competing at Ready Steady Tokyo (Olympic Test Event) in Enoshima, Japan © Beau Outteridge
Australian sailors have a proud tradition of success at recent Olympic Games, and today Australian Sailing announced a landmark framework which identifies the success factors and attributes required to continue steering our athletes towards the podium.
Aligned to the new Australian Sailing High Performance Strategy #nextlevel towards LA 2028, the Australian Sailing Athlete Development Framework (ASADF) has been designed in accordance with best practice principles, academic guidelines and years of applied knowledge. Expertise from national and state coaches as well as experts within the fields of sport science and medicine, athlete wellbeing and psychology were consulted throughout the development process.
The main purpose of the Framework is to provide aspiring athletes and their coaches with clear targets to tailor athlete development plans and key focus areas for ongoing learning and development. An important caveat is that the framework provides guiding principles for a situational development approach and should not be seen as a panacea to be prescribed without a deep understanding for long term-athlete development principles.
"We are delighted to be able to launch what is a key cog of our high performance pathway," said Australian Sailing High Performance Director Mike McGovern at the launch.
"Our athletes have proven across the last three Olympic Games that they are among the best in the world, delivering eleven medals including six Golds in that time. Our challenges now are to maintain the momentum, build the pipeline of talent to ensure repeatable success and grow our depth across all Olympic classes over time to establish a genuine world class High Performance system."
As a guiding light for both athlete and coach development, the ASADF has been designed to demonstrate and explain the required skills, competencies and benchmarks to achieve Olympic podium success.
The framework defines the athlete factors and attributes that national coaches will be looking for in aspiring athletes. Our state partnership programs will also be focussing on and aiming to develop those factors and attributes in a tailored and customised way across the classes.
Performance and results continue to be a hallmark of the Australian Sailing Team and this national framework now provides some added clarity on the important processes on how to get there.
You can view a summary of the Framework on the Australian Sailing Team website.
The Framework is a key deliverable from the #nextlevel strategy, which brings to life and shares the expertise of the AST to the broader sailing community.
You can download a summary of the strategy from the Australian Sailing Team website.