A possible limitation of Study 3 is that the response rate of college athletes was low. However, a low response rate is reasonable because we did not provide athletes with incentives to participate and because we attempted to contact them after the academic year had ended. More importantly, to minimize response bias, we constructed the survey questions to appear neutral to the DPM or the “talent matters” framework.

Table 4 provides information for each sprinter regarding their background, onset of training, and best performances. Seventeen of 20 sprinters reported at least one best performance in their first season of high school competition, and only two of these reported they had begun serious training prior to this. Of the 15 sprinters who reported first season high school performances and no prior serious training, 13 of 15 were age 15 or younger at the end of this first season, supporting our decisions regarding age-appropriate benchmarks (see Methods). All 27 performances recalled by these 15 sprinters were faster than 95th percentile benchmarks. Moreover, seven of these sprinters recalled at least one performance faster than the 99th percentile benchmarks, and two of the others recalled performances that were within 0.5 s of 99th percentile benchmarks. These results represent more objective evidence that, relative to their peers, these sprinters were exceptional prior to the accumulation of substantial training.

Relative ability: 5 = much faster, stronger, or better; 4 = faster, stronger, or better; 3 = about the same; 2 = slower, weaker, or worse. Mean relative ability plus one standard error of the mean is illustrated for each category.

Contrary to the DPM, collegiate sprinters recalled being faster relative to their peers than did collegiate throwers ( Table 3 ; Fig. 2 ). This difference was significant and substantial for recollections of 6–10 and 11–15 years of age, and the differences held within men and women ( Table 3 ). In fact, 90% of sprinters reported they were faster or much faster than their peers at 6–10 years of age and 80% reported they were faster or much faster at 11–15 years of age. As we predicted, throwers recalled being stronger and having better overhand throwing ability relative to their peers than did sprinters, and these differences held robustly for both age ranges and within men and women ( Table 3 ). These results corroborate Studies 1 and 2 by showing that expert sprinters consistently recalled being faster than their peers as children. Furthermore, these recollections were at least somewhat specific to sprinting and so cannot be dismissed as a manifestation of general athletic ability.

Our second approach to establishing the relative abilities of the sprinters focused on the upper boundary of performance. We did this by documenting the fastest 100 m and 200 m times recorded by 9th or 10th graders at high school divisional championship meets held in 2012. To obtain a reasonably representative sample, we first identified a website with track and field results for most U.S. high schools ( http://www.athletic.net/ ). We searched 10 U.S. states in alphabetical order, looking for the first high school in alphabetical order in each state with results from the 2012 season. We focused on this school’s meet prior to the state championship meet, which was generally called a conference, sectional or division meet. These meets included 4–16 teams (median = 9.5) and would be open to all or nearly all pupils at each school. The mean school population (9th–12th grade) at each divisional meet ranged in size from 280 to 2100 students (median = 1483). Thus, the fastest 9th or 10th grade performances would generally represent the fastest male and female in a population of roughly 2,000–5,000 peers of the same sex and age. The median fastest times among 9th and 10th grade female performers were 12.96 and 26.45 s. For males, the median fastest times for 9th and 10th graders were 11.41 and 23.25 s. We consider these times to indicate performance at the 99th percentile or greater. We did not include median best 400 m times because many of these meets did not include a 9th or 10th grader among their finalists.

This method of determining benchmarks is conservative because our examination of high school data (see next paragraph) shows that children slow with increasing sprint distances even for 100 m and 200 m distances. In other words, if we had used more realistic, but difficult to determine, benchmarks, the high school performances of the collegiate sprinters would seem even more exceptional.

Normative data are required to assess the initial sprinting performance of elite sprinters. Because surveys (see below) indicated that these sprinters generally began regular training in 9th or 10th grade (usually ages 14–16) and usually reported best times for their first high school season, we focused on this age, and used two approaches to estimate normative data. First, we extrapolated 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m times (standard distances in U.S. high school meets) from normative values of 50 m times for a large representative sample of 15 year-old Australian schoolchildren ( Catley & Tomkinson, 2013 ). We used Australian data because we could not find data from the U.S., and we have no reason to suspect that athletic abilities of the children from these nations differ substantially. We multiplied normative 50 m times by 2 to obtain 100 m benchmarks and by 4 to obtain 200 m benchmarks; because even world class runners slow by at least 10% when running 400 m, we multiplied 50 m times by 8.8 to obtain 400 m benchmarks. Thus, for females, 50th percentile benchmarks were 17.2 (100 m), 34.4 (200 m), and 75.7 s (400 m); 95th percentile benchmarks were 15.4, 30.8, and 67.8 s. The corresponding benchmarks for males were 15.4, 30.8, and 67.8 s (50th percentile), and 14.0, 28.0, and 61.6 s (95th percentile).

The questionnaire also included items addressing gender, age, receipt of athletic-related financial aid, level of competition (e.g., Division I, II, or III), sports played prior to college besides track and field, recollections of first timed race, and best lifetime performances in all track and field events. No individually identifying information was sought, such as name or school.

“To the best of your recollection, at what age (or grade) did you begin to seriously concentrate on track and field? (By seriously concentrate, we mean giving much attention and effort to training, usually with a coach.)”

“If you competed in any of the following individual events in your FIRST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL track and field, please report your best performance in the event(s) during this FIRST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL track and field”. This was followed by a list of all common track and field events and a text box for each.

The survey was implemented with the commercial platform SurveyMonkey. It began with the item, “To the best of your recollection, how would you compare your SPRINTING SPEED to others your own age and gender when you were 6–10 years old?” Five choices were offered, “much slower”, “slower”, “about the same”, “faster”, and “much faster”. The next item was the same except that the age range was 11–15 years old. Then, for each age range, there were similar multiple-choice items addressing physical strength and overhand throwing ability. We chose these age ranges because (a) 6–10 years constitutes a range before the typical onset of puberty and an age range when children are in school and can compare their athletic abilities (e.g., sprinting and throwing) with a larger group of peers than was available to them before attending school and (b) 11–15 years captures the onset of puberty ( Jones & Lopez, 2006 ) but is earlier than most elite sprinters in Studies 1 and 2 reported, or were reported, to have begun formal sprint training with coaches.

The initial recruitment statement requested individuals to participate in a survey study of the “Development of elite athletic ability.” Individuals were informed that they had been contacted because they had qualified for the 2012 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. They were informed that the survey would take 5–10 min to complete and could be accessed by following an embedded link. No incentives for participation were offered. We first solicited responses from athletes from 13–15 July 2012, and this yielded 35 responses; we solicited responses again on 29 July 2012, and this yielded 29 additional responses.

We searched for email addresses through each school’s online directory and emailed all whom we could. In cases where we could not find email addresses, we attempted to make contact via Facebook. We were able to contact 72 of 114 candidate male sprinters (DI, n = 57; DII, n = 38; DIII, n = 19), and 72 of 146 female sprinters (DI, n = 59; DII, n = 42; DIII, n = 45). Of those contacted, 7 males (10%) and 13 females (18%) participated. In a similar manner, we attempted to contact all male and female individual qualifiers for the championship meets in the shot put, discus, and javelin throws. We were able to contact 83 of 159 male throwers (DI, n = 68; DII, n = 42; DIII, n = 49), and 107 of 169 female throwers (DI, n = 63; DII, n = 47; DIII, n = 59). Of those contacted, 18 males (22%) and 26 females (24%) participated. Numbers of qualifying athletes in each Division vary because some athletes qualified for multiple events and the number of athletes that met each Division’s championship qualifying standards varied.

We attempted to recruit all male and female individual qualifiers in the 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m sprints and shot put, discus, and javelin throws from the 2012 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships; lists were available online ( http://www.ncaa.com ). We recruited individuals from Divisions I, II, and III. The Divisions reflect, on average, the financial commitments made by colleges and universities to their athletes. Division I includes the largest athletic programs that provide the most athletically related financial aid for student-athletes, Division II institutions provide athletes limited financial aid, and Division III institutions do not provide athletically related financial aid ( http://www.ncaa.org ). Consequently, the most accomplished athletes (e.g., fastest sprinters) typically attend Division I institutions whereas the least accomplished generally attend Division III institutions. NCAA institutions are almost entirely comprised of U.S. schools.

The surveys also allowed us to obtain systematic data on sprinters’ performances in their first season of high school competition, which was generally coincident with their onset of formal training. Again, the “talent matters” framework predicts that sprinters will be much faster than most of their peers even at this early stage in their careers, whereas the DPM does not.

In Study 3, we recruited individual sprint qualifiers for the 2012 National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) national championships to complete an online survey. We asked sprinters about their speed relative to their peers as children and adolescents. To address the specificity of their athletic ability, we also recruited a control group, collegiate throwers (e.g., shot put, discus, javelin) who qualified for these meets. The “talent matters” framework predicts that sprinters generally will recall being faster than their peers as children and adolescents than will the throwers. To further address specificity, we also asked about physical strength and overhand throwing ability. We predicted that throwers would recall being stronger and having better overhand throwing ability as youths than would sprinters.

The results of Studies 1 and 2 contradict the DPM’s predictions, but they have two plausible limitations with regards to initial performance. First, perhaps the initially exceptional running of elite sprinters does not represent sprinting talent specifically. For example, a child with more overall athletic experience than its peers, or one who physically matures earlier, might be exceptional in almost all areas, and this early success could be a precondition for later pursuing and excelling in various sports. Second, perhaps sprinters desire to portray themselves as unusually talented and therefore provide false accounts of their abilities. Study 3 was designed to address these limitations.

One concern about Study 1 and Study 2 is that 10 years might not have been necessary to achieve expertise for many sprinters because PEDS accelerated their development. This issue warrants consideration, but, for several reasons, the use of PEDs cannot provide a genuine defense for the DPM. First, some sprinters in Study 1 performed before the PEDS believed to substantially help sprinters (e.g., anabolic steroids) would have been available to them. It is thought that weightlifters and bodybuilders in East Germany, the USSR, and the USA first used anabolic steroids in the 1950s ( Ungerleider, 2001 ; Yesalis, Courson & Wright, 2000 ). Anabolic steroids did not become widely used by track and field athletes until after the 1960 Olympics ( Yesalis, Courson & Wright, 2000 ). Thus, PEDs seem unable to explain the rapid development of Jesse Owens, Helen Stephens, Wilma Rudolph, and Bob Hayes. Second, the biographies of Ben Johnson and Marion Jones indicated they began using PEDs after they had achieved world class performances. These athletes and their coaches acknowledged that PEDs allowed them to run faster, but stated that the gains, although certainly meaningful in allowing them to beat their competitors, were proportionally modest. At the 1989 Canada Commission of Inquiry into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic Performance, Ben Johnson’s coach, Charlie Francis, testified, “It’s pretty clear that steroids are worth approximately a meter [in the 100 m] at the highest levels. He [Ben Johnson] could decide to set up his starting blocks at the same line as all the other competitors, or set them up a meter behind them all” ( Nooden, 1989 ). A one meter benefit from steroid use is equivalent to 0.1 s in a 10.0 s 100 m sprint. Similarly, recent admissions by Tim Montgomery (see Table 2 ) indicate that he reached world class status prior to using PEDs and that the performance benefits were proportionally modest, roughly 2–3% ( Axon, 2013 ). Thus, PEDs seem unable to provide a plausible explanation for the rapid attainment of world class status by these sprinters.

The trajectories of 100 m performance improvement as a function of age are displayed in Fig. S1 . These show, both individually and collectively, that sprinters’ abilities generally improve from their late teens until their mid-twenties and then gradually decline. Presumably, the improvement generally reflects physical maturation and training and the decline reflects senescence. These trajectories must also be affected by other factors, such as motivation, injuries, racing conditions, and the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Fastest 100 m times at age 19 were available for 19 of the sprinters ( Table 2 ). They showed only modest improvement between their fastest time at age 19 and their personal record (mean improvement = 3.3 ± 1.5%; Table 2 ). They typically achieved their fastest time in their mid-20 s (median = 24.8 years, 25.2 ± 2.6 years; Table 2 ).

In nine cases, adults reportedly first recognized a sprinter’s talent. Leroy Burrell ( Hollobaugh, 1991 ) and Bernard Williams ( Satterfield, 1997 ) were discovered while they played baseball and basketball, respectively, whereas track coaches identified the superior abilities of the other seven. In the cases of Carl Lewis and Walter Dix, their parents were the track coaches ( Lewis & Marx, 1990 ; Landman, 2008 ).

We were able to obtain information regarding the development of 12 of 20 sprinters, and these data are summarized in Table 2 . All 12 were recognized as exceptionally fast relative to their peers before or coincident with their initiation of formal training. There was no indication that any sprinter was initially unexceptional.

In order to provide a more comprehensive picture of improvement, we plotted yearly best performances for the fastest 10 sprinters in this sample and plotted them as a function of age. We obtained data (though 31 December 2013) from the International Association of Athletics Federation ( http://www.iaaf.org ) and again only included legal times.

We obtained information on athletes’ best performance at the age 19 from U.S.A. Track and Field ( http://www.usatf.org ), International Association of Athletics Federation ( http://www.iaaf.org ), or track and field historian Walter Murphy (pers. comm., 2011). We choose age 19 as a convenient cut-off age for comparisons between early and life-time fastest sprint performances because IAAF defines a Junior athlete as one who is 19 years of age or younger ( http://www.iaaf.org ). We obtained lifetime personal best performances from U.S.A. Track and Field ( http://www.usatf.org ). For these best performances, we only counted times that were legal (i.e., not wind-aided, wind less than 2 m per second).

We used methods similar to those in Study 1 with the following two caveats. First, with the exception of Carl Lewis, book length biographies were not available for these athletes. We thus obtained information from magazines, newspapers, and internet sources. Second, we classified athletes as first reaching world class status upon first meeting either of the following criteria: (1) representing the U.S. in international competition (e.g., Olympic Games, World Championships, Pan American Games in an individual sprint event or as a member of a relay team) or (2) participating in the U.S. Olympic Trials which requires the athlete to meet Olympic A or B standards to qualify to compete at the Trials. Four of these athletes (Gatlin, Mitchell, Montgomery, Williams) were sanctioned for using PEDs at least once in their careers. Eight of the 20 sprinters (Bailey, Crawford, Dix, Gatlin, Gay, Padgett, Patton, Williams) competed in 2012 when we finished gathering data for this study. One athlete, Carl Lewis, was also included in Study 1.

In addition, we documented the trajectories of performance improvement, particularly the percentage of improvement after age 19. The DPM makes no quantitative claim regarding the magnitude of improvement among regularly training adult athletes. However, the “talent matters” framework implies that once athletes have reached physical maturity and done some formal training, subsequent improvements will be relatively modest.

We again examined whether these sprinters were exceptional prior to initiating formal training and how long it took for them to reach world class status. We also searched for evidence indicating that these men were unexceptional relative to their peers prior to their beginning formal sprint training.

In Study 2, we examined the development of the 20 fastest male U.S. 100 m sprinters. This is an excellent sample because the U.S. has been one of the strongest sprinting countries since the onset of modern international competition and record keeping ( Lawson, 1997 ). This is revealed by the fact that 14 of 20 of these men won at least one individual World Championship or Olympic sprint medal (100 m, 200 m, or 60 m indoors); four of the others have won at least one relay medal at the World or Olympic championships. Moreover, all of these men achieved performances that meet contemporary standards of world class performance, including the 2012 Olympic A Qualifying Standard (i.e., 10.18 s automatically qualifying them to participate in the Olympic Games; http://www.usatf.org ).

The results of this study clearly contradict the DPM: sprinters were consistently fast prior to formal training, achieved world class status in much less than ten years, and, in most cases, their exceptional development cannot be attributed to skill transfer. Nonetheless, this study has two possible limitations. First, the sample size of 15 is modest. Second, many of the individuals became Olympic champions several decades ago. Because world class sprint performances have continued to improve ( Seiler, DeKoning & Foster, 2007 ), this raises the question of whether our results would differ if we used a more contemporary sample of sprinters. Study 2 was designed to address these limitations.

For 10 of 15 sprinters there was no evidence that they had participated in organized sports of any kind prior to the recognition of their superior sprinting ability or their initiation of deliberate sprint practice.

The biographies reported that adults (e.g., teachers, coaches) initially recognized the superior sprinting ability of nine sprinters (five women) and encouraged them to begin formal sprint training or competition. For example, the superior abilities of Wilma Rudolph, Helen Stephens, and Wyomia Tyus were discovered while they played basketball ( Table S2 ), whereas Bolt (2010) and Hayes (1990) were discovered while they played cricket and baseball, respectively. In five cases (two women), sprinters reported recognizing their superior sprinting ability beginning in childhood. For example, Marion Jones reported that she was “always fast” and excelled at multiple sports ( Jones, 2004 ) and Tommie Smith reported that he excelled at all sports as a schoolboy ( Smith & Steele, 2007 ).

All 15 Olympic champion sprinters were recognized as being exceptionally fast relative to their peers before or coincident with their initiation of formal training. There was no indication in any biography that any sprinter was initially unexceptional. We condensed key information in Table 1 and summarized relevant passages from each biography in Table S2 .

From the biographies, we recorded any evaluation of the sprinter being exceptional or unexceptional relative to their peers. We recorded who made the evaluation, the sprinter, a teacher, or a coach, or another individual. We recorded the sprinter’s age when the evaluation occurred and the age when they began formal training with a coach. We assumed that formal training with a coach would indicate the onset of training activities that would best correspond with “deliberate practice.” In some cases, the sprinter’s age at the time of first evaluation or first formal training was not mentioned, but their grade in school was, and this allowed us to estimate their age. For instance, the first year of high school was assumed to indicate being age 14 years. In cases where there was no explicit mention of the initiation of formal training, we assumed this occurred at the onset of formal competition, usually in the first year of high school. We also noted any mention of a sprinter’s formal participation, or not, in an organized sport other than track and field prior to beginning formal sprint training. We also recorded the sprinter’s age when they first represented their country in the senior (i.e., open to all ages) World Championships or Olympic Games. We considered national representation indicative of achieving world class or expert status. These are highly selective, conservative measures of expertise because these championships do not occur every year and individuals who have reached world class performance levels may not qualify for them due to injury or other issues.

We sought English-language biographies, including autobiographies, published in print of male and female gold medalists in the 100 m or 200 m sprints from the 1896 to 2012 Olympic Games. We were able to obtain at least one biography for 15 sprinters (8 women) and obtained two or more biographies for six sprinters. Two of the champion sprinters, Ben Johnson in 1988 and Marion Jones in 2000, were later stripped of their gold medals due to their use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). We retained these sprinters in the sample because the available information indicated that they reached world class status before they began using PEDs. Furthermore, the use of PEDs may be common among world class sprinters, even those who are never sanctioned ( Francis & Coplon, 1991 ; Moore, 2012 ).

Although our main focus was testing the two predictions discussed above, we also explored whether champion sprinters had participated in organized sports prior to beginning their sprinting career. This was important because it could be argued that exceptional sprinting performance prior to formal sprint training reflects skill transfer from other sports ( Baker, Côte & Abernathy, 2003 ; Smeeton, Ward & Williams, 2004 ).

We examined the biographies of Olympic champions because becoming an Olympic champion shows unambiguous evidence of expertise. Moreover, because there is often great interest in sprint champions, biographies have been written about many of them. These generally include detailed information on the sprinter’s athletic development, making them ideal for addressing the predictions of interest.

We tested the two key predictions of the DPM with three complementary studies. In Study 1 we reviewed the biographies of male and female Olympic sprint champions. In Study 2 we reviewed the biographies of the 20 fastest male 100 m runners in U.S. history. In Study 3 we surveyed male and female sprinters who qualified for the 2012 U.S. collegiate national championships. To our knowledge, these are the first studies to address the DPM in sprinting.

Here we provide strong tests of two critical DPM predictions in the domain of sprinting (e.g., footraces over short distances such as 100 m). First, we tested the DPM’s prediction that initial performance in a domain (i.e., prior to deliberate practice) and final performance in the domain will be unrelated. Although there has been much discussion about prodigies, since their occurrence would falsify the DPM, it is impossible to assess whether an individual is exceptional prior to training in most domains ( Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer, 1993 ; Howe, Davidson & Sloboda, 1998 ). For example, it makes little sense to ask, much less measure, how gifted a child is at playing chess before they have become knowledgeable about the rules of the game. In the domain of sprinting, however, it is possible to assess performance prior to training. This is because nearly all children run in the course of normal play. Thus, a child who is an exceptionally fast runner can readily assess their ability relative to their peers, as can adult observers. The DPM implies that initial performance in a domain represents random error and that only formal training determines an individual’s ultimate level of performance. In contrast, an interactive “talent matters” framework predicts that, as children, most elite sprinters will have been fast relative to their peers and that these individuals will have performed exceptionally well as soon as they began formal competition and training.

A fourth problem with the DPM is its claim that deliberate practice explains a very high proportion of the variance in the attainment of expertise; the empirical data contradict this ( Hambrick et al., 2013 ). For example, deliberate practice explained only 28% of performance variation among dart players ( Duffey, Baluch & Ericsson, 2004 ). Among chess players, deliberate practice explained only 34% of performance variation. And in fact, some chess players did not reach the master level despite 25,000 h of practice, whereas others reached this level with only 3,000 h of practice ( Gobet & Campitelli, 2007 ). Similarly, a study of 459 elite Australian athletes from 34 different sports demonstrated that the mean period of development from novice to elite athlete was 7.5 ± 4.1 (SD) years, and 69% of athletes in individual sports achieved elite status in less than five years ( Oldenziel, Gagne & Gulbin, 2004 ).

Third, scientists have noted weaknesses in the behavioral evidence that directly addresses the DPM’s claims. The DPM is based on correlational studies showing that achievement is strongly correlated with accumulated deliberate practice. One problem with the DPM is that it assumes that deliberate practice drives the correlation, yet it is possible that innate ability, or talent, is causal ( Ackerman, 2013 ). In other words, individuals that experience early success as a result of superior innate ability typically become more motivated to train ( Howe, Davidson & Sloboda, 1998 ). For example, in the domain of music expertise, Ruthsatz et al. (2008) reanalyzed the data in Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer (1993) and showed that, even as young children, the violinists who would eventually accumulate a large amount of deliberate practice (about 10,000 h on average) and become elite were already more likely than others to win competitions despite training for similar durations as those who would not become not become as accomplished.

General Discussion

The three studies of sprinter development in this paper focused on testing two crucial predictions of the DPM. We begin our discussion by considering each prediction. We then examine the implications of our findings.