In search of the golden skill.

Athletes devote their lives to practicing their chosen sport so as to attain the highest level of skilled performance. A perennial question is why are some athletes better than others? Most debates on this issue reduce to genetics (natural abilities) vs differences in accumulated deliberative practice. In contrast, the target article under discussion here reports on a study that identified psychosocial factors (obsessiveness, ruthlessness) and early life experiences (trauma or loss) that distinguished those athletes at the Olympics and World Championships that medaled over those that did not. The interpretation seems to be that other factors and not just skill make true winners. The point will be made here, however, that psychosocial factors might just predict more devotion to practice at the expense of everything else. If this is true then perhaps the most successful athletes really are just the most skilled.