The educational experience of athletes in youth olympic games: A systematic review

Abstract

This study aims at understanding what has been produced in national and international literature about participation of young elite athletes in the Youth Olympic Games, focusing on their educational experience. We conducted a qualitative systematic review, with searches in five different databases, where inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to select seven articles. The results showed that participation in YOG can promote a set of value-based learnings for young athletes. However, such educational experiences seem to materialize much more from informal meetings and sociocultural interactions between them. It finds that the success of this new mega event does not lie in replicating the Olympic Games in preparation for youth to perform in the adult editions, but in their ability/ potential to balance the sport-competition-education triad more clearly.