distinctive characteristic of expert athletes. For example, Abernethy and Russell (1987)
found that top-class squash players based their predictions about ball-flight on early
signals from opponents’ movements (e.g., from both the position of the racquet and the
racquet arm) when watching film simulations of squash matches. However, squash
beginners tended to adopt a more constrained visual search process—looking only at
those cues that were yielded by the racquet itself. The significance of this finding is clear.
Expert athletes have a knowledge-based rather than an innate speed advantage over less
proficient rivals. In general, therefore, speed of reaction in sport depends as much on the
mind (because it depends on game-specific knowledge and anticipation skills) as on the
body. Put differently, research on anticipatory cue usage suggests that expert athletes
have a cognitive rather than a physical advantage over less successful counterparts. This
finding raises the contentious question of whether hardware or software explanations of
athletic expertise are more plausible scientifically.
What makes an expert in sport? Hardware or software
characteristics?Are sport stars born or made? Unfortunately, it is not possible to answer this general
question scientifically because genetic and environmental factors are inextricably
intertwined. Nevertheless, some progress has been made in identifying the relative
contributions of physical (or hardware) and mental (or software) processes to expertise in
sport (Andersen, Schjerling and Saltin, 2000).
To start with, let us consider the popular idea that athletic expertise is largely a matter
of being born with the right physical hardware such as a muscular physique, fast
reactions, acute vision and exceptional sensitivity to peripheral visual information.
According to this intuitively appealing theory, success in sport is attributable to the
possession of some fixed and prototypical constellation of physiological attributes
(namely, a “superior” nervous system) as well as to exceptional perceptual-motor skills
(e.g., rapid reflexes, dynamic visual acuity). Furthermore, it is assumed that by using
these advantages, top athletes can run faster, see more clearly and display sharper
reactions than average performers. At first glance, this approach is persuasive because it
is easily exemplified in sport. To illustrate, Jonah Lomu, the brilliant All-Black rugby
winger, is not only 6 feet 5 inches in height (1.96 m) and 260 Ib (118 kg) in weight—but
is also capable of running 100 metres in little more than 10 seconds (The Economist,
1999). Similarly, Venus Williams, who won four Grand Slam events in one season,
stands at an impressive height of 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) and can hit tennis serves that
travel at over 120 miles per hour (193 kph) (ibid.). Clearly, the hardware possessed by
Lomu and Williams is as impressive as their athletic achievements. By contrast, the
appearance and actions of most sporting novices seem ungainly, poorly co-ordinated and
badly timed—even to an untutored eye. But this physical theory of athletic expertise is
flawed by several problems. First, even at an anecdotal level, “bigger” does not always
mean “better” in sport (see Box 6.2).
Sport and exercise psychology: A critical introduction 158