Chapter 5 Miljøets betydning i elitesport

"In recent years there has been an increased focus on the importance of the environment for the development of elite athletes. In order to understand the factors that contribute to or limit an athlete’s sporting development, it is not enough to study only the individual but the whole environment in which the athlete develops. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate what characterizes a successful elite sport environment in Danish badminton. An elite sports environment that continuously manages to create senior results at the highest international level and win medals at the European championships, the World championships and the Olympics. The study was organized as a case study of the national elite sports center in Badminton Denmark (BD). Data was based on interviews with players, coaches and managers, observations on training and in competitions, meetings and analysis of documents. The environment was centered on self-understanding based on “us against the rest of the world” and a fundamental value in the environment was to create intelligent players while focusing on individual development through high training quality. The organizational culture was characterized by being: 1) a well documented, quality oriented and dialogue-based learning environment, 2) an environment with hard competition and 3) an environment with proximal role models."

"De seneste år har der været stigende fokus på miljøets betydning for udvikling af eliteidrætsudøvere. Det er sket ud fra en erkendelse af, at hvis man ønsker at forstå de faktorer, der medvirker til eller begrænser en udøvers sportslige udvikling, er det ikke nok kun at studere den enkelte atlet, men hele miljøet, som udøveren udvikler sig i. Formålet med dette kapitel er at undersøge, hvad der karakteriserer et succesfuldt eliteidrætsmiljø i dansk badminton, dvs. et eliteidrætsmiljø, der kontinuerligt formår at skabe seniorresultater på højeste internationale niveau og vinde medaljer ved EM, VM og OL. Undersøgelsen var et casestudie af eliteidrætsmiljøet i Badminton Danmark (BD). Der er indsamlet data fra interviews med spillere, trænere og ledere, observationer under træning og turneringer, interne møder og analyse af dokumenter. Miljøet var centreret omkring en selvforståelse baseret på ”os mod resten af verden”, og en grundlæggende værdi i miljøet var at skabe intelligente spillere og samtidig have fokus på individuel udvikling igennem høj træningskvalitet. Organisationskulturen var konstrueret som: 1) et veldokumenteret, kvalitetsorienteret og dialogbaseret læringsmiljø, 2) et miljø med hård intern konkurrence og 3) et miljø med nære rollemodeller."