YADC2016

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About NYSI Youth Athlete Development Conference 2016


The inaugural NYSI Youth Athlete Development Conference will provide a unique platform for sports administrators, practitioners and educators to become up-to-date with youth athlete development and its intricate interactions with a multitude of bio-psychosocial, environmental and contextual factors. Within these sessions, we also hope to question the notion of ‘ talent’ and its ‘ identification’ to highlight the need to shift away from using early sporting success as an indicator of future podium placing. Discussions will also center around sporting pathways that focus on early sports specialisation, to an agile system that accounts for multiple possible pathways towards sporting success, and the quintessential need for athletes to have the mindset to achieve the highest levels of success. For this reason, we have themed our conference ‘ Talent < Timing < Tenacity ’.

Thank you for participating in the inaugural YADC 2016. Please refer below for the respective speakers' conference materials.

Speakers' Profile



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Prof. Dr. Arne Gullich 

Head of Department of Sport Science and Director of the Institute of Applied Sport Science,  Kaiserslautern University of Technology 

On the efficacy of early talent identification and talent development programs 

Professor Gullich is the head of Department of Sport Science and director of the Institute of Applied Sport Science at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Until 2008 he worked as the head of talent development at the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). Arne has also coached youth and senior track and field athletes, including Olympians. Some of his research interests focus on youth sport, talent development and evaluation of talent development programs.

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Dr. Johan Pion 

Head of Talent Identification and Development, HAN University of Applied Sciences  

Predicting sporting elite and minimising talent loss 

Dr. Johan Pion is the Head of Department, Sport Talent Identification and Development at the University of Applied Science HAN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In addition to being Belgium’s former head coach in tumbling gymnastics, Dr Pion is highly regarded as a sport scientist, having conducted his research in across multiple domains including developing sports talent. His recent research “ The Flemish Sports Compass: From sports orientation to elite performance prediction (2015) “ presents an innovative concept in the search for talent that offers an updated vision of the opportunities available for detecting and identifying talent. Currently, Dr Pion heads the research team that primarily focuses their research in applied sports talent identification surrounding the themes of Smart Sport Choice, Detection of the better movers, Identification of the better athletes, Talent Orientation and Talent Development. 

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Dr. Taisuke Kinugasa 

Senior Manager, Athlete Pathway Development Project, Japan Sport Council 

A cross-national comparison of Japanese and Singaporean athlete development pathways  

Dr Taisuke Kinugasa obtained his PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Queensland, Australia in 2004. He worked extensively with both youth and elite level athletes, including Olympians, at Queensland Academy of Sport, Singapore Sports School, and Singapore Sports Institute. His professional interests include athlete development pathways using a biological approach and monitoring elite athletes using single-subject research designs, among others. In his current position, Dr Taisuke has been responsible in the establishment of athlete pathways for Japanese athletes by integrating pathway management, talent coaching, and sports science and athlete lifestyle support. 

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Dr. Juanita Weissensteiner 

Head of Department of Athlete Pathways and Development, Australian Institute of Sport 

From active lifestyle to sporting excellence – Deconstructing the FTEM framework and its applicability within Australia 

Dr. Juanita Weissensteiner is the current Head of the Athlete Pathways and Development section at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). A physiotherapist by trade, Juanita is an original co-author of the FTEM (Foundation, Talent, Elite and Mastery) Athlete Development framework utilised by the AIS and the Australian Sports Commission. The FTEM framework served to inform the review, refinement and support of the entire athlete pathway from a foundational to a podium level, and has worked directly with over 30 National Sporting Organisations. Juanita was a co-contributor for the published International Olympic Committee’s Consensus statement on Youth Athlete Development. 

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Mr. Sebastiaan Platvoet 

Team leader at the Center of Expertise Talent in Sports, HAN University of Applied Sciences 

The role of physical education in the identification of young sport potential 

Mr. Sebastiaan Platvoet was a former talented handball player in The Netherlands. His interest in the talent identification and development process came as a result of him missing out on being identified as a potential elite handball player. Mr. Platvoet holds a bachelor degree in Physical Education, a master’s degree in Human Movement Sciences, and a European master degree in Sport & Exercise Psychology. Mr. Platvoet is currently working at HAN University of Applied Sciences and is the team leader of the research group Sports & Talent, of which his particular research interest is to better understand the role that PE can have in the identification and development of young sport potentials. 

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Prof. Michael Chia 

Dean for Faculty Affairs, National Institute of Education 

Of chili crab, chicken rice & chye-tow-kway – A contextual examination of the IOC consensus statement on youth athlete development 

Professor Michael Chia, PhD is Professor of Paediatric Exercise Physiology at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was a panelist on the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission that deliberated and discussed seminal issues related to elite youth sport development. The expert caucus resulted in the publication and promotion of the International Olympic Committee consensus statement on youth athletic development in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2015. In the same journal issue, he co-authored with Dr Haresh Suppiah and Dr Low Chee Yong of the National Youth Sports Institute, Singapore, on “Detecting and developing youth athlete potential: different strokes for different folks are warranted”. 

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Contact Us


For any enquiries, please contact us at
 enquire@nysi.org.sg 
 6766 0100 ext 514