Talented athletes and academic achievements:a comparison over 14 years

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the academic achievements of 200 talented athletes in 1992/1993 and 200 in 2006/2007, aged 14-16 years. When compared with the national average, the athletes in 2006/2007 attended pre-university classes more often (2 = 57.001, p.05). Of the 2006/2007 athletes, a higher percentage participated in pre-university programs compared with that of athletes in 1992/1993 (2 (1, n = 400) = 32.003, p.05), whereas the national averages showed stability (2 = .325, p.05). Investigating self-regulation appears relevant, as talented athletes may have developed a high sense of self-regulation in sports, which may enable them to optimally profit from their self-regulatory skills in their academics.