Elite netball players’ perspectives on long term athlete development programs in South Africa

Petrus Louis Nolte*, Willem Hollander

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

Netball is a sport that has shown significant growth in popularity and stature over the past decade. At present the sport features on the world ranking list in 45 countries. South Africa is currently ranked 1st in Africa and 5th in the world. Over time Netball South Africa has increasinglydeveloped and adopted professionalized programs in athlete management and development. One of these being the implementation of elite provincial tournaments,namely the highly competitive Telkom Netball Challenge, which is a semi-professional league, played between 13 top teams from all nine provinces in South Africa. The emphasis in this study falls onlong term athlete development programs as part of the athletes’ preparations for these competitions. The aim of the study was to recordthe experiences of South African elite netball players,on the long term athlete development (LTAD) programs,they participated in. The LTAD conceptual framework was utilized to establish the perceived experiences of elite netball athletes who had to rate the training facilities, trainingprograms, scientific support, and coaches involved in the LTAD programs they participated in. This study adopted an explorative descriptive design with a quantitative approach, utilizing a self-structured questionnaire as research instrument. A sample of 172 elite netball players was selected, 118 players from the 13 provincial teamsat the 2019 Telkom Netball Challenge,who are currently participating in provincial or national (senior and under age) LTAD programs, as well as 54 players of the U/21 elite group,currently in preparation for the 2022 U/21 World Cup.Construct validity was secured through a member of the Statistical Consultation Services (STATCON) of the University of Johannesburg,whoprovided feedback on the structural format of the questionnaire while reliability was measured utilisingCronbach Alpha on p<0.005 level of significance (0.87).The results indicated thatNetball players make relatively limited use of scientific support within the LTAD programs they participate in. The services of physiotherapists and medical doctors were utilized more extensively than dietary, psychology and lifestyle support services. There is a clear emphasis on team training in LTAD programs in the respective provinceswhile the lack of training facilities proves to be a significant barrier to the implementation of coordinated and structured LTAD programs. Lastly, relatively healthy coach-athlete relationships, access to, and communication with coaches exist in the provincial LTAD programs, with a relatively high confidence in the knowledge and expertise of coaches that in turnstimulatessuccessful competition performances.

Original languageEnglish
Article number349
Pages (from-to)2560-2566
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Physical Education and Sport
Volume20
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Sept 2020

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • high performance
  • LTAD
  • player improvement
  • player amnagement

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