“Talent needs trauma” is a really dangerous phrase to be seeing banded about on Twitter linked to high performance without people understanding how that word is being used.

Most people’s understanding and it’s definition is: “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience”.

There should be no place where “deeply distressing experiences” are artificially created or pushed into athletes in the pursuit of high performance sport and winning. And we cannot hide behind ‘elite sport is tough’ as an argument to justify such a thing.

A couple of stories I heard this morning about how coaches have done exactly that; taken it literally and caused these events for young people show that can happen in such a way.

Whilst interpretation maybe that it’s “trauma with a little t” as I was told by an author...

...and they would suggest it’s about speed bumps and challenge, I’m becoming more conscious that the word is wrong because people default to their understanding of the word that is commonly used. Maybe we need to rebrand what’s needed.

Some people would say “read the research to understand and what they mean by the word trauma”. I get that. But in reality most people don’t, despite it being a valid point. They will hear the phrase and think it needs to be created in a sporting pathway without understanding.