**4. Identification of talent in sports**

A plethora of talent identification problems can be found within the subdisciplines of exercise science including motor learning, sports psychology, and sociology. The purpose of talent identification (TI) is that the earliest possible selection of auspicious athletes with the goal of systematically maximizing their potential. Top performance of athletes is not limited to the demand of fame, public recognition, sponsorship, and prize money but genetic inheritance contributes a prime role to hold such traits. The current example of the soccer player Gareth Bale, for whom Real Madrid paid a fee of €100 million, reflects the prevailing economic pressure [13].

There are different organizations which select the talent and develop them into competitive athletes. Any eligible youth can apply to those organizations, who will be called for selection trials. The admission to the schemes will be subject to fulfillment of the eligibility criteria and battery of test as well as skill tests. Although the standards are subjected to multidisciplinary research and detailed discussion, the optimal test design for a reliable prediction of talent has not yet been found [14–16]. However, although talent identification and development plans have become more and more popular in recent decades, there is still a lack of consensus on how to define or identify talents, and there's no uniformly accepted theoretical framework to guide current practice. The success rate of talent identification and development plans is rarely evaluated, and the effectiveness of the application model is still very controversial.

Several authors dealing with any aspect of a 'talented person' note an inherent problem: the talent concept has been widely but indiscriminately observed and utilized [17]. Some models were based more on the hypothesis that talent is genetically transmitted or that success in a given domain is innately contributed ('innate' talent that is sometimes synonymously used with giftedness) [18, 19]. In this chapter, we unify the discoveries from these disciplines in a way to summarize and focus the traditional measurement methods of talent identification (TI) and emerging genetic testing (GT).

#### **4.1 Conventional talent identification (TI)**

The promotion of athletes basically follows two paths: talent identification (TI) (usually followed by selection) and talent development (providing the most suitable learning environment to reach this potential), which plays an important role in the pursuit of excellence. In many high-level organizations and teams, sciencefocused support systems (such as counseling, physical conditioning, and computerbased competition analysis) are now the foundation for cultivating elite athletes. However, due to the lack of scientific basis for most TID projects, many academics suggest that research work be transferred from IT and testing to TD and guidance. [20, 21]. Talent development programmes focus less on current abilities but more on providing athletes with appropriate practice conditions to promote their future potential in a given sport [22].

TI and TD models are associated with low predictive value and their validity and usefulness have been widely questioned [21, 23].

#### *4.1.1 More about conventional talent identification (TI)*

The recognition of talent includes the measurement and comparison of different characteristic values that determine the specific performance of sports. The test parameters come from a statistical path analysis, showing a single variable that largely describes complex performance. For example, sprinting performance depends primarily on body build, basic running speed, and technical or coordination skills [24]. Depend on these analysis TI tests assess atmospheric variables like weight, limb circumference, bone density, and physiological measures like maximum O2 uptake, aerobic, anaerobic endurance, strength, flexibility and sport specific skills such as running, jumping and diving performances. The analyst compares different age groups or performance levels in the cross-sectional design; if a top-down approach is adopted, the first-class athletes are compared with the poorer-performing athletes by evaluating certain differences. These differences that reveal the most significant differences between performance levels are identified as predictors. For example, among basketball players, vertical jump, arm width, and

basketball pass a significant predictor [25]. However certain percentage of total variance of basketball performance could not be explained and observed to be an association of cognitive, psychological or sports specific factors such as decision making or game scene.

The cross-sectional designs of most talent studies hide other problems in terms of attribute assessment classification and transferability in into TI programmes. Further the classification into 'talented' 'elite' or 'successful' athletes versus 'les- or untalented' 'non- or sub-elite' or 'unsuccessful' [26, 27] differs between the studies and depends most evidently on the availability of athlete groups for the studies.

Many studies revealed only weak differences between high and lower performance levels that were insufficient for discrimination. Therefore, due to the dynamic and multidimensional nature of sport talent, traditional Talent Identification and Talent Development models are likely to exclude many, especially late maturing. This TI procedure focused on a limited range of parameters and select based on 'one-off' proficiency measures that fail to acknowledge that physical maturity and previous experience can influence performance.

#### **4.2 Genetic identification of talent**

Elite athlete ('elite athlete refers to one who has competed at a national or international level in a given sport') [28] status is a partially heritable trait, as are many of the underpinning physiological, anthropometrical, and psychological traits that contribute to elite performance. The phrase "genetic factors" refers to potential differences in DNA sequences between individuals. Although humans are considered to be 99.9% identical in genetic sequence, our human genome is composed of approximately 3 billion DNA "letters", and even small differences between two genomes mean that millions of letters will have The difference [29]. These letters provide a series of instructions for the development and maintenance of our body structure, including physical and mental attributes.

The main question is no longer if there is a genetic component associated with elite athletic status and endurance/power trainability, but rather, which genetic profiles contribute to elite performance [30]. Genetic information can be collected for a talent identification program by simply addressing family history of the aspiring athlete: do young athletes have talented parents or siblings or family members who have the physical or mental characteristics that match the needs of the target sport? But this genetic information is neither accurate nor perfect, like other aspects of talent identification. The addition of genetic profiling is being considered to make the prediction and selection process more precise and quantifiable and thus make the "art" of athlete selection more measurable [31]. Several companies are beginning to market genetic tests for sport performance prediction based on this assumption. Genetic testing could theoretically be applied regardless of time and place, with results independent of an athlete's age, training cycle, physical condition or daily health. From a governing body or club perspective, gene-based talent selection will help maximize economic resources. Around the world now a day, newborn screening is common practice for a variety of genetic disorders. In adults, genetic testing is used in many fields like diagnostic and predictive testing for any kind of disease condition and very promising carrier testing prior to pregnancy for both parents.

#### *4.2.1 Can genetic testing identify talent for sport?*

Recent years have witnessed the increase of an emerging market of direct-to consumer marketing (DTC) tests that claim to be ready to identify children's athletic talents. Since the 1960s, genetic tests have been provided to patients for health-related reasons within a clinical setting [32] usually following a medical referral, genetic counseling, and upon obtaining informed consent, but now many tests are offered by different organizations. A host of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing is available, where people submit DNA samples (usually cheek swabs) to the company, which then returns the genetic testing results directly to the consumer without the need for a healthcare provider. Keeping in mind of sports performance, genetic testing and profiling technologies are visualized as way to identify ones carrying particular combinations of gene sequence variants associated with particular physical or mental trait, or suited to success in particular sports. The genetic information would be paired with more typical analysis of talent selection in order to best select young athletes for early sport-specific training.

#### *4.2.2 Examination for genetic trait analysis*

**Purpose**: Among the non-athletic young man, first identify the effect of α-actinin-3 deficiency due to homozygosity for ACTN3 577X polymorphism on fast muscle fiber's contractile & morphological properties.

In human body, two genes are encoded for α-actinin of skeletal muscle, α-actinin - 2 protein for ACTN2 & α-actinin-3 for ACTN3. Generally, ACTN2 expressed in all skeletal muscle fibers but ACTN3 expression is on restricted to type-II fast fibers, predominantly involved in powerful explosive contraction. So, the aim of the study is to analyze skinned muscle fibers to get more insight into the contractile and morphological properties of α-actinin-3 deficient and α-actinin-3 expressing muscle fibers in non-athletic young males.
