Researchers are attempting to uncover the why behind Wagga Wagga – the NSW country town that has produced a swag of sporting champions.

Queensland’s Griffith University is leading research into identifying potential elite athletes, which could be the key to improving Australia’s international sporting success.

Rather than the standard biophysical measures, the university hopes to uncover reasons why some towns and regions like Wagga, which they call “hot-spots”, produce more elite athletes than others.

The university is working with the Australian Sports Commission, Australian Institute of Sport, Cricket Australia, Tennis Australia and the Australian Football League following a $300,000 grant last month from the Australian Research Council.

“We’ve looked at AFL for a start and our researchers looked at data from junior participation and then seen who’s been chosen for drafts in the AFL draft system to see if areas of high concentration of junior participation correlate with elite success,” said lead researcher Professor Kristine Toohey, the head of the university’s Department of Tourism, Leisure, Hotel and Sport Management on the Gold Coast.

“If there’s good junior involvement and good draft picks you’d call that a hot-spot, if there’s good junior but no talent, that’s cold, and even colder if there’s no participation and no draft picks.

“We’ll then go into the hot-spots and look at why they are.”

Professor Toohey said it was known as the “Wagga effect or Wagga syndrome”, however the current research would attempt to uncover why.

Wagga has produced a stunning honour role of athletes including rugby league greats Peter Sterling, Chris and Steve Mortimer and Arthur Summons, former AFL stars Wayne Carey and Paul Kelly, 400m runner Patrick Dwyer, golfer Steve Elkington, cricketer Mark Taylor and tennis champion Tony Roche.

“The thesis about the Wagga effect is that cities of a certain size produce inordinate amounts of talent but we’ve found with our study it doesn’t necessarily correlate.

“Some of the hot-spots are not in areas where you might think by the Wagga effect.”

She said over the next three years researchers would study factors such as the family support for elite athletes, whether there was a strong club system, socio-cultural factors, psychological factors, how recruiters perceived talent, home-town advantage and whether the hot-spots have strong socio-capital.

Prof Toohey said the hot-spots could be used as “best-case” for cold-spots to use as a model.

“It costs Australia a lot to win a gold medal and previously we’ve concentrated on bio-physical markers of talent identification.

“But the research shows there’s a lot of factors that produce talent and what we’re saying is maybe we need to look more at these … there’s a lot of other things that create and nurture strong talent.

“We’re trying to take the next leap.”

© AAP 2012

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