Youth in Sport

The most important outcome at the end of a youth comp - smiles :) I have no idea where these young competitors finished on the day at the Scottish Youth Bouldering Championships in 2012.

"Secondly, youth teams were no longer to focus on results. Sablon commissioned a study into youth football that saw 1,500 matches filmed and studied. One of the key findings was that too much emphasis was being placed on winning and not enough on developing players. It was win at all costs and that was costing Belgium.

Sablon even went as far as ensuring under-seven and under-eight teams did not have league tables.

"Results went out of the window," Sablon said. "The objective of the youth teams was no longer to win games, it was to develop players. It was not easy, I was personally attacked in the press and by people in the Belgium federation."

Thirdly, Sablon created a rule that once a player had moved up, for example, from the under-17s to the under-19s, he did not go back. Not even for crucial games."

Great article on BBC about the Belgian soccer team and their reinvention starting at youth sport.

""It wasn't easy to go to people and tell them to stop doing what they'd done for years," added Sablon."