{"id":35348,"date":"2026-06-26T08:52:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=35348"},"modified":"2026-06-26T09:25:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:25:20","slug":"why-talent-pathway-transitions-start-long-before-they-actually-happen","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/why-talent-pathway-transitions-start-long-before-they-actually-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Talent Pathway Transitions Start Long Before they Actually Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 26 Jun 2026 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Why Talent Pathway Transitions Start Long Before they Actually Happen<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/why-talent-pathway-transitions-start-long-before-they-actually-happen\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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As Dr \u00c1ine MacNamara explains, successful transitions depend on a young athlete\u2019s psychological characteristics of developing excellence.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
We know the best junior performers seldom become the best senior performers, but why is that?<\/h6>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s the coaching and the experiences that we give the highest-performing athletes that under-prepares them for senior success and negatively impacts their conversion,\u201d Dr \u00c1ine MacNamara tells the Leaders Performance Institute. \u201cIt isn\u2019t because early success isn\u2019t an appropriate foundation but maybe we don\u2019t present those early achievers with appropriate developmental challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacNamara is an Associate Professor in Elite Performance and Co-Lead of the Coaching and Expertise Lab (Co|Ex Lab) in the School of Health and Human Performance at Dublin City University. Her research on talent pathway environments has long been underpinned by the question of appropriate developmental challenge. It makes her an ideal candidate to discuss how teams can better meet their young athletes\u2019 developmental needs.<\/p>\n

She suggests that the best pathways recognise that there are development and performance considerations at all stages of a talent pathway; their shared long-term objective is to prepare young athletes for the demands they will face as they move through the pathway.<\/p>\n

To that end, MacNamara proposes that these athletes must develop and refine psychological characteristics of developing excellence [PCDEs] that enable them to navigate the challenges they face (for example, the ability to cope with setbacks, reflect on performance and take ownership of their development).<\/p>\n

\u201cAthletes are not born with loads of resilience or determination \u2013 these are psycho-behavioural skills developed as part of being in a pathway that they can use to navigate the different challenges that they\u2019re facing as they move from foundation to youth to senior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of half an hour, we spoke to MacNamara about the importance of PCDEs and their place at the heart of aligned efforts to ensure better pathway transitions.<\/p>\n

Experience as a good process marker<\/strong><\/p>\n

MacNamara explains that one fundamental problem is the conflict between how academies are structured and the individual needs of their young athletes. \u201cOf course a system has to have a structure that caters to most people, but some people won\u2019t fit into that,\u201d she says. \u201cWe know that moving between different stages of development is one of the most turbulent and discombobulating times for young athletes because the demands on them and the outcome markers of those stages change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, what a foundation-stage athlete needs when transitioning into the youth development phase will be different to what a junior needs when making a senior transition. \u201cDifferent things become more or less important as athletes navigate between stages.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, MacNamara encourages people to view pathway transitions not as an event but as a process which requires athletes to be supported coming into, during and out of different stages. \u201cIt\u2019s something that starts way before the transition and happens as they progress through it.\u201d She places a premium on how well different parts of the pathway connect to one another, the extent to which there is coherence and alignment, as important elements of ensuring athletes are progressively prepared for what comes next.<\/p>\n

There is also evidence that time spent in an academy is a good indicator of progress. \u201cHaving under-nines in your academy may be a poor indication of who\u2019s going to become a senior professional \u2013 very few will make that eventual conversion, but in another way, one of the things that we understand about transitions is that cumulated experience is actually a good process marker of who\u2019s going to progress through transitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, \u201cathletes who manage and navigate those transitions have more time in the system, have more opportunities and exposure to different challenges that give them a toolbox of skills to be able to navigate upwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The importance of \u2018big bumps\u2019 in the road<\/strong><\/p>\n

Broadly speaking, athletes on a pathway have the same physical or physiological skills; the biggest distinction lies in their ability to face a range of challenges and opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean \u2018challenges\u2019 in a really positive way \u2013 things that help them get better,\u201d says MacNamara. Athletes with good PCDEs will be able to ask themselves \u2018how do I make sense of this experience? What do I need to get better? How do I implement that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Often, the greatest transition pinch points are from foundation to youth and then from junior to senior; and when such transitions become turbulent, an athlete\u2019s PCDEs act as their \u201carmbands\u201d that allow them to manage that experience and learn from it.<\/p>\n

To illustrate her point, MacNamara cites her 2016 research paper with Drs Dave Collins and Neil McCarthy titled \u2018Super champions, champions and almosts\u2019. The \u2018super champions\u2019, as one might expect, are the elite of the elite; the \u2018champions\u2019 are accomplished athletes; the \u2018almosts\u2019 are those who showed early promise but didn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n

The super champions and champions had had opportunities to progressively develop PCDEs in a low-stakes setting as they moved through the pathway. As a result, they had a toolbox to call on when it really mattered.<\/p>\n

The almosts, on the other hand, \u201cwould look back on their career as pretty smooth until it wasn\u2019t\u201d and, as a consequence, \u201cthey hadn\u2019t had the opportunity to develop those PCDEs to cope with that big bump that generally came later in their development\u201d.<\/p>\n

It took one athlete in MacNamara\u2019s study years to succeed at senior international level. The athlete in question \u201chadn\u2019t developed the skills that allowed him to navigate the transition when his early advantages plateaued out against everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to early achievers, a coach must ask of themselves how they can \u201cmake the road more rocky\u201d as MacNamara puts it, not to just present the athlete with a challenge but to provide an experience to develop skills for the long-term. \u201cThere\u2019s repercussions to that because the athlete might now not win the under-ten national championships, but actually that experience might give them the environment to develop those skills they need for later on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The implications for coaches and talent pathways<\/strong><\/p>\n

Coaches must be cognisant of their athletes\u2019 PCDEs. \u201cIf I know you\u2019re about to make the transition from junior to senior in the next six months, then part of the development process is the coach going \u2018what are the PCDEs that you\u2019re going to need to navigate that?\u2019 And how well is the athlete prepared to deploy them effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacNamara observes that pathway coaches will often make interventions in the immediate term to apply a \u201cband-aid\u201d but \u201cthe best pathway environments are proactive and ask \u2018what do I anticipate is going to happen and what are the broad range of skills you need to navigate and to help you manage that transition effectively?\u2019 Good coaches do that as part of their practice.\u201d Each stage is about preparing athletes for the demands of the next.<\/p>\n

There is a role for senior team coaches too. \u201cIt\u2019s an important question because, in a way, the first team is just worried about the first team. If I\u2019m the head coach, I really don\u2019t have time or maybe responsibility for what happens down the chain, but I think there is a responsibility from an organisational perspective and a coherence perspective to make sure that there\u2019s alignment as you go through.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may not mean first-team coaches becoming developers, but it does require clear bridges between environments (such as phased exposure to senior training and expectations) so athletes are gradually prepared for the demands they will face.<\/p>\n

To help track the development of PCDEs, in 2011, MacNamara and her colleague Dr Collins devised their psychological characteristics of developing excellence questionnaire [PCDEQ]. Athletes are invited to self-report using the questionnaire and their answers will generate a PCDE-based profile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PCDQ gives a guide to help coaches manage and guide practice at an individual level,\u201d adds MacNamara. If an athlete is to progress from, say, youth to junior level, their profile will highlight any potential work-ons; by the same token, if an athlete\u2019s future lies outside the academy, their profile will enable staff to manage their duty of care in a way that prepares them for life elsewhere.<\/p>\n

She then tells the tale of a young female athlete cohort who collectively registered an \u2018adverse response to failure\u2019 when completing the questionnaire. It led to an intervention, not with the athletes themselves but their coaches. \u201cCoaches were inadvertently putting huge emphasis on being good right now,\u201d says MacNamara. \u201cOn the face of it, they were saying \u2018this is a development environment and we want people to get better\u2019 but their messaging was \u2018we\u2019re going to select you based on these things\u2019. So when the girls were filling in the PCDEQ it was clear that they were scared of failing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six months later the team filled in the questionnaire again. \u201cThe scores had changed, not because of any intervention with the girls, but because the coaching was starting to emphasise that, actually, we want you to push hard and fail because that\u2019s where the learning happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transition processes must be developmentally-designed<\/strong><\/p>\n

MacNamara advocates for an integrated curriculum of PCDEs that starts young. \u201cIt\u2019s not that you\u2019re going to get a bunch of eight-year-olds in a room and teach them goal-setting, but it should be part and parcel of coaching,\u201d she says. \u201cSo when decisions are being made, when young athletes are moving from one stage to another, the PCDE curriculum that underpins that transition should allow them to manage that transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Used in this way, PCDEs provide a common thread across the pathway, linking early development to the demands of senior performance.<\/p>\n

By the time the athletes reach the \u2018pointy\u2019 part of the pathway, \u201cthe PCDEs have been purposefully integrated into the curriculum to allow them to cope with the challenges ahead of them. They\u2019ve had input on all the PCDEs and opportunities to test and refine them.\u201d<\/p>\n

They will have developed a sophisticated behavioural skillset that stands them in good stead for managing the range of transitions that exist on a pathway.<\/p>\n

Pathway coaches, MacNamara says, should ask themselves: \u201cHow am I supporting athletes not just to be the best performer today but with an eye on what they need later on?\u201d That might mean slowing down someone who is excelling in their age-group and exposing them to adversity and setbacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat level of integration, of system coherence, is really important; recognising that athletes need to experience the transition as a process, which means the academy needs to be structured to manage those incremental changes as they pass through.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the same token, \u201cif an athlete is moving through a football academy, for example, and they get released at a stage of the pathway, because inevitably most of them do, that toolbox of PCDEs will allow them to navigate that exit as well and would allow them to manage that transition out of the pathway.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we wrap up the conversation, MacNamara stresses that PCDEs are not a selection tool. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t select on them but we would use them to drive development.\u201d<\/p>\n

She emphasises that \u201cthis isn\u2019t something extra that you do in your pathway \u2013 it\u2019s just part of a holistic approach to developing athletes that can navigate those transitions as they move forward\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the effectiveness of any pathway depends less on how well it identifies early talent and more on how coherently it supports athletes as they move through its different stages.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

10 Ways in Which the Best Environments Support their Pathway Athletes<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n