High performance sport or elite sport is

sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

at the highest level of competition. In

sports administration The Sports Administration (SA; ) is a branch of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China (Taiwan). History The Sport Administration was initially established in 1932 as the Sports Council (體育委員會). On 12 January 1998, the Sp ...

, "high-performance sport", where the emphasis is on winning prestigious competitions, is distinguished from "mass sport" or "

recreation Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...

al sport", where the emphasis is on attracting the maximum number of participants. In team sports, the concept of high performance involves also team performance strategy and assessment. High-performance sport overlaps with the upper tiers of

professional sport In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...

; within the realm of professional sport, the elite tiers of the sport are known, particularly in North America, as major leagues. On the other hand, elite competitors at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

World Games The World Games are an international multi-sport event comprising sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. They are usually held every four years, one year after a Summer Olympic Games, over the course of 11 d ...

in some minority sports may be part-time or rely on government grants. Likewise,

student athlete A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementar ...

s, especially in

college sports College athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games. World University Games The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale des É ...

, are often high performance despite being nominally amateurs. Much research in

sports psychology Sport psychology was defined by the European Federation of Sport in 1996, as the study of the psychological basis, processes, and effects of sport. Otherwise, sport is considered as any physical activity where the individuals engage for competi ...

and

sports medicine Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since the ...

is motivated by the needs of elite rather than mass athletes.

Doping in sport In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs by athletic competitors as a way of cheating in sports. The term ''doping'' is widely used by organizations that regulate sporting competitions. The use of ...

is more common at elite levels, and research into

performance-enhancing substance Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where bann ...

s has been fuelled by the drive for success, this despite the practice being firmly illegal at almost all levels of play. Separate state agencies may be responsible for high-performance sport and for mass sport;

national governing bodies A sports governing body is a sports organization that has a regulatory or sanctioning function. Sports governing bodies come in various forms and have a variety of regulatory functions. Examples of this can include disciplinary action for rule ...

for a particular sport often have separate administrative units for supporting élite athletes and the funding of athletes likely to win

Olympic medal An Olympic medal is awarded to successful competitors at one of the Olympic Games. There are three classes of medal to be won: gold, silver, and bronze, awarded to first, second, and third place, respectively. The granting of awards is laid o ...

s. In

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

, funding for high-performance sport may be justified for reasons of national prestige or as a marketing tool for encouraging mass sport.

Eastern bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

countries invested in elite sport during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

; Western countries began establishing Institutes of Sport for a similar purpose from the 1980s, with sports academies for nurturing promising young athletes. Such institutes may set goals in terms of national ranking on the Olympic medal table.

References

* * * * * * * Sports business Politics and sports Sports science {{sport-stub

See also

References