Rik Hardon was a track athlete started age 6 and during his teenage years dreaming about “one goal”: the Olympics. Performing loads of training sessions on the track for years but at the end realizing he did not have the physical potential. The dream was not realizable…. Isn’t this the case for many youngsters? With a different attitude and coaching: would it have been possible to achieve more with today’s knowledge? Was there to much pressure on “win & perform” instead of “develop, grow, learn & enjoy?

In the years following his sport career Rik developed in commercial IT business (working for the world’s top IT companies a.o. Oracle & Microsoft). The skills he learned during his young sport career were and still are very useful…. Coaching people and performance management of yourself and your team is key to succeed in business as well as in sports. Rik followed several top international coaching courses and saw that much of the business coaching tactics also applied on sports and coaching groups of young sportsman and woman. Over the past decade Rik worked together with many national champions in track & field but also talented ones from other sports (Olympic level) worked with him.

Abuse in gymnastics, over fanatic parents in soccer, athletes with burn outs….

This was the reason to start writing and create a coaching game: the goal to mean something in a broader way for young athletes and support their talent routes in optimizing environment, and to make sure that athletes enjoy what they are doing and teams having fun while being competitive is the thought behind MY SPORT TALENT.

In the process of writing the book many top coaches and ex pro’s in cycling, soccer, track and field and speed skating were involved and gave their view on “developing talent”.

What is your ultimate top? Discover your boundaries and climb your way up….. Supporting young athletes and making sure they realize that enjoying their journey is more essential than the final result Because it is your talent, you are the only person that is capable of realizing unleashed potential