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Raise Your Game: What does the Talent Team selection process involve?

Stuart MacDonald: The Talent Team is a 3 stage process geared at year 8 & 9 girls and year 9 boys. The first stage is to send coaches out to all over Wales to test about 1500 children. We draw a circle with a 32metre radius on a school field and get them to take two tests: The first is a sprint test and they get two attempts to sprint the diameter of the circle - 64m. The second is an endurance test. The circumference of the circle is approximately 200m (circumference = pi*diameter = 3.14*64m) and we get them to do 6 laps - about 1200m in total. We record the times and take weather and grass length into consideration.

At the end of the summer term, when all the testing has been done, we select the 120-150 fastest kids to come back for further testing. They sprint for 5 seconds to test speed, or revs per minute. They do it three times and we take the best attempt. The third attempt is normally the best because they've had a chance to practise and get used to it. They also do 2 maximum power tests with resistance on the bike where we're looking for power output in watts.

They're given a 3 minute endurance test. They have to learn to pace themselves but push really hard. Lots of people are sick at the end of it. You've got to give 100% effort. Some will start too fast. Those who get it right will go on to stage 3.

Thirty kids are selected for Stage 3. We repeat the test from stage 2 to ensure that it wasn't a fluke and interview them and outline the commitment required from them. Of the 30, 12-14 are invited to be part of the Talent Team for 3 years.

RYG: How do you use the results?

SM: There's a computer on the bike which records the data. You can then plug that computer into the laptop and input the data into Excel.

The Talent, or Fitness, Index is calculated using the equation:

Fitness Index = power/weight * 0.67

The formula is entered into the appropriate cells in Excel using the cell coordinates for power and weight so that the Fitness Index is calculated automatically and graphs can be generated.

By taking weight into account, you can compare children of the same age but different body mass. An exponent of weight, 0.67, correlates with body surface area. It is used to normalise the fitness index so factors that affect performance, such as air resistance, are taken into account.