The purpose of the study was to examine the developmental pathways of elite youth swimmers. Swim-related developmental activities of elite and sub-elite youth swimmers were examined. Fifteen elite (8 males; 7 females) and 15 subelite (5 males; 10 females) youth swimmers were recruited for the study. A semistructured questionnaire was used to record retrospectively the hours engaged in swim-related activities (i.e., structured and unstructured activities) from beginning of career. No significant differences were found for swim-related developmental milestones for both elite and sub-elite swimmers. Overall, the elite swimmers accumulated more hours in swim-related activities than the sub-elites between 6-15 years of age. Although the former accumulated more hours in both structured and unstructured swimming activities between 6-12 years of age, no significant differences were found between the groups. However, the elite swimmers accumulated significantly more hours in structured swimming.....

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The main objective of this research was to examine the development of the Malaysian youth athletes in the national sports schools. Athletes (n=117) from eight sports (squash, archery, athletics, fencing, swimming, netball, hockey, volleyball) participated in the study. The first study examined the athletes practice history prior being selected into the institutions. Data on sport specific milestones, type and amount of practice engaged and involvement in other sports were obtained using the Athlete Developmental Pathway Questionnaire. The individual sport athletes (squash, archery, athletics, fencing, swimming) achieved most of the sports milestones later but went on to higher levels of competitions earlier, compared to team sport athletes (p..

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