Millions of children around the world play a multitude of sports, both at school and outside of school. As they get older they get better, but some of them stop playing. We discussed that the better and sometimes older kids (in their age group) are given more chances and more opportunities, as well as better coaching. This results in them gaining more experience and practice. Eventually, some of them end up becoming national or world-class athletes who compete and represent their country. For this to happen, they must be recognized as talented and given the chance to become great. There are talent identification programs (TIPs) that aim to find future top athletes. Scientists have been studying ways to improve such programs and also to introduce new ways of recognizing talent. The way most TIPs work is to look for children in early adolescence, some as early as 6 years old, but most between 8 and 12 years old (Vaeyens 1368). Factors considered by many TIP programs are: “height, weight, muscle development, body fat, aerobic capacity, anaerobic power, strength, skill, and agility” (Pearson 279-281). If not already apparent, the problem with the TIP is that there are too many variables and confounding factors to obtain meaningful results. If a child is older than others at age 6 or 12, this will not necessarily be true later, because many physical changes occur during puberty. It is likely that older, taller, stronger children, who bloom early, will eventually catch up with others, after puberty. Conducting tests based on the 9 variables outlined by Pearson and hoping that the results are true is almost scandalous. A test used by TIP to test for anaerobic... middle of paper... of female runners of different ages." Journal of Applied Physiology 78.5 (1995): 1931-1941. Print.Medic, Starkes and Young. “Examining the Relative Effects of Age on Performance Achievement and Participation Rates in Masters Athletes.” Journal of Sports Sciences 25.12 (2007): 1377 -1384. Print.Pearson, Naughton, and Torode of maturation in talent identification for adolescent team sports." Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 9 (2006): 227-287, Gullich, Warr and Philippaerts. "Talent identification and promotion programs of Olympic athletes. "Journal of Sports Sciences 27.13 (2009): 1367-1380. Print.Vaeyens, Lenoir, Williams and Philippaerts Current Models of Sport and Future Directions." Sports Med 28.9 (2008): 703-714. Press.