A Comparison of Developmental Paths of Elite Gymnast between China and the United States of America

Within the theoretical framework of expert performance,32 elite Olympic and International gymnasts who from China and the United States of America,were involved in this study.Structured questionnaire and interviews were used to collect retrospective information on gymnasts' developmental process of being elite gymnast from novice.A series of 2×2×3 repeated measures ANCOVAS were used to analysis in age which gymnast reached each level,how many hours of practice they averaged at each level,and finally how many competitions they averaged at each level.The main findings of this study showed that Chinese reached level 2 and level 3 at younger age and trained more during these two periods of time,as well.While American competed more at level 1 and level 2.These differences mainly caused by the systems that those two counties has adopted.Otherwise,there was significant gender effect in ages at level 3 and interactions between nation and gender in competition attendance varied across time periods with American male gymnasts competed more.Within the systems,there was difference during the developmental process of being elite gymnast across these two countries.However,the results also indicated that both Chinese and American gymnasts started their training at younger age.Competition attendance was proved less relevant to expertise development,based our samples.Comparative better performance than same ages would be the one of characters of being elite status,after first several years of training.