science

High-performance sport

High-performance sport is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand High-performance sport rather than just read about it. In short: High performance sport or elite sport is sport at the highest level of competition. In sports administration, "high-performance sport", where the emphasis is on winning prestigious competitions, is distinguished from "mass sport" or "recreational sport", where the emphasis is on attracting the maximum number of participants.

Key takeaways

High-performance sport belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect High-performance sport to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of High-performance sport from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

High performance sport or elite sport is sport at the highest level of competition. In sports administration, "high-performance sport", where the emphasis is on winning prestigious competitions, is distinguished from "mass sport" or "recreational sport", where the emphasis is on attracting the maximum number of participants. In team sports, the concept of high performance involves also team performance strategy and assessment. High-performance sport overlaps with the upper tiers of professional sport; within the realm of professional sport, the elite tiers of the sport are known, particularly in North America, as major leagues. On the other hand, elite competitors at the Olympic Games or World Games in some minority sports may be part-time or rely on government grants. Likewise, student athletes, especially in college sports, are often high performance despite being nominally amateurs. Much research in sports psychology and sports medicine is motivated by the needs of elite rather than mass athletes. Doping in sport is more common at elite levels, and research into performance-enhancing substances has been fuelled by the drive for success, this despite the practice being firmly illegal at almost all levels of play. Separate state agencies may be responsible for high-performance sport and for mass sport; national governing bodies for a particular sport often have separate administrative units for supporting elite athletes and the funding of athletes likely to win Olympic medals. In public policy, funding for high-performance sport may be justified for reasons of national prestige or as a marketing tool for encouraging mass sport. Eastern Bloc countries invested in elite sport during the Cold War for propaganda purposes; some Western countries began establishing Institutes of Sport from the 1980s, with sports academies for nurturing promising young athletes.

See also Professional sports Semi-professional sports The Sports Gene – Book by David Epstein

References

Further reading Beamish, Rob; Ritchie, Ian (2006-09-27). Fastest, Highest, Strongest: A Critique of High-Performance Sport. Routledge. ISBN 9781135987084. Retrieved 18 August 2016. Bergsgard, Nils Asle; Houlihan, Barrie; Mangset, Per; Svein Ingve, Nødland; Hilmar, Rommetvedt (2009-11-04). "High performance sport". Sport Policy. Butterworth-Heinemann. pp. 152–199. ISBN 9781136364686. Retrieved 18 August 2016. Green, Mick (2004). "Changing policy priorities for sport in England: the emergence of elite sport development as a key policy concern". Leisure Studies. 23 (4): 365–385. doi:10.1080/0261436042000231646. ISSN 0261-4367. S2CID 145048046. Grix, Jonathan; Carmichael, Fiona (2012). "Why do governments invest in elite sport? A polemic". International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. 4 (1): 73–90. doi:10.1080/19406940.2011.627358. ISSN 1940-6940. S2CID 153350698. Hanstad, Dag Vidar; Skille, Eivind Å. (2010-03-31). "Does elite sport develop mass sport? : a Norwegian case study" (PDF). Scandinavian Sport Studies Forum (1). Malmö University: 51–68. hdl:11250/170845. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-08. Retrieved 2021-02-10. Pringle, Richard (2001). "Examining the Justifications for Government Investment in High Performance Sport: A Critical Review Essay". Annals of Leisure Research. 4 (1): 58–75. doi:10.1080/11745398.2001.10600891. ISSN 1174-5398. S2CID 154411069. Sotiriadou, Popi; Bosscher, Veerle De (2013). Managing High Performance Sport. Routledge. ISBN 9780415671958. Retrieved 18 August 2016.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with High-performance sport

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what High-performance sport claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to High-performance sport before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about High-performance sport ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of High-performance sport

In research: High-performance sport appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses High-performance sport in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: High-performance sport is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics National Institutes of Sport, Politics and sports, Sports academies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for High-performance sport outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study High-performance sport in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what High-performance sport means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain High-performance sport out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is High-performance sport in simple terms?

Why does High-performance sport matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study High-performance sport?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on High-performance sport.