i THE NATIONAL YOUTH AND SPORTS POLICY DOCUMENT ...

The Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, theMinistry of National Education, the Council of Higher Education, Universities, LocalAuthorities, Sports Federations, Media Institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations.5. 3. TRAINING ELITE ATHLETESIt is important in Turkey, with a high young population ratio, to identify children andyoung people who have a high degree of talent in the field of sports and to train these peopleas successful athletes in sports branches.In this respect, it is necessary to maintain important, consistent and scientific work onchildren and young people who are at an age to start sports and to discover children andyoung people who show superior performance and to train these children and young people atthe highest level.Considering that our children and young people can be elite athletes in the future, it isnecessary to enable them to participate actively in sports activities in both physical traininglessons at schools and in the activities outside school at a sufficient level.Despite the fact that the age of starting sports differs among branches, it is verysignificant for children who could prefer being elite athletes in the future to be introduced tosports at an early age by playing games and to acquire basic sports qualifications at early agesfor physical preparation and fitness.It is necessary for our children to be physically and mentally ready, to know Olympicsports at early ages, and to be inclined towards Olympic branches at appropriate ages in orderto have a successful sports career.Young generation’s doing sports actively, being familiar with sports or preferring tobe an elite athlete will have an effective role in establishing a society that loves sports and isbrought up with a sports culture and in raising a healthy generation. Establishing such asociety will be an important acquisition to gain high level successes, to establish an audienceculture and to raise a healthy generation.The identification of talented athletes from a large athletes’ pool will provide animportant increase in the number of our elite athletes and will pave the way for participationin the international organizations with more elite and successful athletes. Bringing talentedathlete candidates who will be determined together with the most qualified trainers in the bestenvironments, training elite athletes within the plans and programmes with the highest levelof scientific support as well as providing modern facilities for them will be the most radicalinvestment in order to gain success in the Olympics.61