40 Chapter 3 Introduction For coaches and stakeholders in competitive swimming, season best performances and national rankings are the main information source for talent identification and selection processes (KNZB). Based on this information and their perception about how that information relates to future performance, they have to make decisions about whether or not a swimmer is selected for an athlete development program (Schorer et al., 2017). However, several researchers are questioning this one-sided approach in which performance at early stages of development (e.g. age 12 onwards in competitive swimming; KNZB, 2018) is used as an indicator of future performance (Abbott et al., 2005; Vaeyens et al., 2009; ElferinkGemser et al., 2011). They advocate that there are multiple pathways to reach expertise and that there is a risk to erroneously overlook athletes as being talented by focusing on current performance only (Vaeyens et al., 2008; Gulbin et al., 2013; Till et al., 2016). In order to provide scientific-based knowledge about the value of early age performance in competitive swimming, Post et al., (2020) tracked down the junior-to-senior performance development of top-elite swimmers at the 100m freestyle event. This research was based on the analysis of season best performances and provided support for both perspectives. The findings showed that 1) compared to each other, top-elite swimmers follow unique individual developmental pathways towards expertise and 2) compared to other performance groups, top-elite swimmers in general progressively outperform their elite, sub-elite and high-competitive swimmers of similar age from twelve years onwards. In addition to examining group averages as in the research of Post et al. (2020), upper and lower limits of swimmers who have made it to the top can provide relevant insights as well. Stoter et al. (2019) used the upper limits of elite speed skating performance (slowest performance per age and per sex for those who later reached the elite level in this sport) to define performance benchmarks for future speed skaters. The results showed that the majority of talented male and female speed skaters who performed within the elite benchmarks at a younger age, did not make it to the top. These findings combined with previous results of Post et al. (2020) inspire to continue the investigation of youth performance. What characterizes the performance development of those who are considered as talented swimmers (e.g. perform within performance benchmarks) and do reach the top compared to their talented counter peers who do not reach the top? Probably, the answer to this question may not be hidden in solely tracking season best performances. Although monitoring and modelling season best performances highly contributed to a deeper understanding of performance development to the swimming top (Stewart & Hopkins, 2000; Costa et al., 2011; Allen et al., 2014; König et al., 2014; Post et al., 2020; Yustrus et al., 2020), it would be interesting to include additional swim performances in mapping performance progression of talented swimmers. As such, scientific-based data about 1) the progression between a swimmer’s previous season best performance and his
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