A. Mark Williams is an academic and one of the world's leading authorities on expertise and its acquisition in sport. He has published 18 books and written over 500 scientific articles on how people become skilled and achieve success in sport and across other professional domains. He has worked across the globe as a consultant with numerous Olympic and professional sports and has vast experience as a scientist, author and educator, and as an applied sports scientist.Tim Wigmore is the author of Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, the winner of the Wisden Book of the Year award for 2020. He is a sports writer for The Daily Telegraph, and has also written regularly for The New York Times, The Economist, the New Statesman and ESPNCricinfo. He is a former winner of the Young Cricket Journalist of the Year award and has been shortlisted for the Cricket Writer of the Year award.
Insightful, thoughtful, and altogether wonderful: The authors have
given us a guided tour of athletic greatness, brimming with
revelatory science and deep understanding.
*Daniel Coyle, New York Times bestselling author of The Talent
Code*
For any coach that wants to learn and then coach better, this book
is a must read. Developing elite athletes is an intricate process
and this book will help you achieve the right balance of
coaching.
*Eddie Jones, Head Coach, England Rugby*
An engrossing guidebook for youth athletes, parents, coaches and
perhaps even fantasy-league fans looking for a little insight.
*The Washington Post*
Fascinating and insightful... The Best isn't a one size fits all,
it's a highly thought out, well-researched and accessible book that
gives recommendations based on context and sport.
*Joanne O’Riordan, The Irish Times*
The Best takes you on an epic journey of discovery and learning
while also highlighting some of the nuances and pitfalls around
developing elite athletes.
*James Bunce, High Performance Director, US Soccer Federation*
Answers the big questions about how stars are made, in lucid,
jargon-free prose. Takes our understanding of elite sport to a new
level and deepens the enjoyment of watching. A major addition to
sporting literature.
*Paul Hayward, Chief Sports Writer, Daily Telegraph*
The Best takes a classic question posed by sport - what made them
so good? - and interrogates it with genuine intellectual
sparkle.
*Ed Smith, England cricket selector, author of What Sport Tells Us
About Life*
A great read for anyone interested in excellence using a compelling
mix of narrative interviews with the best athletes interwoven with
cutting edge science.
*Sian Beilock, author of Choke*
This crisply written and enthralling book is a study of high
achievement in sports. But it is much more than that because of the
richness of the human interest stories it tells and of how it uses
data to explain its conclusions. It achieves that rare feat: making
you look at the world in a new way.
*Jason Cowley, editor, New Statesman*
The Best is an enthralling read that combines the latest research
along with interesting anecdotes that bring to life how the world's
best athletes are made. Whether a casual reader or professional
working in athlete development The Best is a great read.
*Troy Taylor, High Performance Director, US Ski and Snowboard*
The authors delve deep into the minds of great athletes, making
tangible the intangible, bringing reason to the unexplained, and
order to the chaos surrounding the creation of elite sportsmen and
women.
*Stuart Miller, Senior Executive Director, International Tennis
Federation*
Taking the complexity of cutting edge research and mixing it with
the insights from expert performers in elite sport, The Best stands
out in offering a glimpse of the characteristics of greatness and
highlighting the many factors that lead individuals to sporting
triumph.
*David Colclough, Head of Coaching/Sports Science at The
Professional Golfers’ Association (The PGA)*
The Best provides a perfect balance between evidence-based and
anecdotal writing. It is easy to read, yet insightful and
thought-provoking. It provides a good framework to understand the
multifactorial and random aspects involved in human talent. The
Best is a great resource for anyone interested in skill learning,
talent identification and expert performance in sport.
*Xavi Schelling, Director of Sports Science and Performance, San
Antonio Spurs*
The authors have created a piece of work that encapsulates
everything we should know about identifying and developing
champions. This book is a must for any coach, Sporting Director,
teacher or mentor; in fact, anyone involved in finding talent and
creating opportunity for potential to become reality. In this one
book, the authors cover the full spectrum of requirements for elite
athletes to become the best they can be and provide the tools for
others to help them.
*Les Reed, Technical Director, The Football Association*
A must read for any coach who wants to optimize and facilitate
athlete development. The book highlights how talent develops by
creating realistic practice situations and empowering athletes. The
book, amongst other things, has the athlete and sport at its core,
while bestowing on the coach a crucial role as the facilitator of
sporting greatness.
*Isaac Guerrero, Head of Coaching at FC Barcelona*
The Best is simply an essential read. It takes us on a
rollercoaster tour of the journeys of some of the world's most
celebrated athletes and explains how they achieved sporting
greatness.
*Christopher Carling, Head of Performance, French Football
Federation*
In The Best, the authors' vast scientific expertise and real-world
experience from the trenches of elite sport results in a
fascinating, informative, and immediately relevant read. I devoured
it in a weekend and immediately shared it with my National Team
coaches and performance staff.
*Peter Vint, Chief of Sport, USA Volleyball*
A comprehensive book, which thoroughly covers, using science and
interviews with successful athletes, the key factors that impact on
a prosperous career in sport. For those involved in this domain,
this is a very important read that helps improve understanding of
the nuances that exist along the pathway to sporting
excellence.
*Juninho Paulista, General Manager, Brazil National Football
Team*
The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made combines relevant anecdotal
support and sound academic research to better describe the rocky
journey to sporting success that many of our athletes take. This
book is a good reminder for sports scientists that high performance
sport in its purest sense is multi-faceted and that athletes
require incredible resilience to succeed in ever-increasing
competitive and complex environments.
*Adam Grainger, BASES Sport and Performance Division Chair*
Excellent.
*Gideon Haigh, the Australian*
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