It is from the middle of the last century, where sport gains more prominence in society and even more 30 years. New tests appear, New sports modalities, Olympic tests ...

In the case of this article, What he intends, is to know what are most important indicators To be able to determine whether that boy or girl of 14 years, some day, may be playing a Tour de France or an Olympic Games in Mountain Bike.

You have to take into account first, a sociological and another more physiological base. Not all champions, or the vast majority, "They have been born like this" but their environment has helped them grow.

It is for this reason, that Ericsson (1996) tells us about a very large bottle, What is the environment and what goes inside that bottle is the "inherited" or genetics part. Therefore, And as the first conclusion, We could talk about how vital the athlete is so that it can be developed. It is clear that if you have no resources and support from the closest, We can do little because the champion grows.

In the inherited part, It would be the physiological indicators that can be used to determine the talent of a young athlete, We could find several according to different authors. Among them we highlight these, Malina RM et al. (2015)

• Bone Age of the athlete.
• Anthropometric measures of the athlete.
• Pubertal development. 

A factor closely linked to the biological age of the athlete, since depending on their biological age, The pubertal process will have started before and therefore the growth of its body segments, muscle mass or other determining elements in the development of sports practice.

• Age in the growth peak.
  We would also find ourselves in great differences between boys and girls, since they reach the maximum growth peak before the boys, due above all to the menarchy phase and their premature development in relation to the boys.
• Age in menarche. 
  Indicator for the girls of their first menstruation and beginning of the hormonal phases in their body.

Apart from these indicators that are important for any athlete in general, depending on the modality we will give more importance to the bone age of the athlete or for example, Anthropometric measures (for example in basketball is a determining factor)

Entering aerobic sports such as cycling, We should look at theVo2max, As Armstrong N (2013) says is the best individual criterion for the aerobic aptitude of young people. I already talked about the concept of VO2 in a previous article, But it is important that we have this value well determined.

Is VO2MAX. can be increased in a 150% of the 8 to the 16 years of age of a boy and in the case of girls a 80% In this period of time, therefore, We can find great variations depending on the age of the boy or girl in their growth phase.

Another physiological indicator of the performance of a young cyclist can be itsMaximum developed power. In this case, We found a Sutton study, N. C. and Col (2000), where I value different athletes from between 7 y 17 years by bicycle with a wingate test (30 ’all out or butt), looking for the maximum power developed by the athlete in this time space.
The results showed an equality in maximum power values ​​between boys and girls to 12 years of age, even a little better girls to 12 years. The differences are shown after, where the boy is superior to the girl due to their pubertal development.

These two great values: VO2max and maximum power developed, They can be determined with an effort test together with gas analyzer, Always under the supervision of a sports doctor, To see if there is any type of alteration at cardiovascular or ventilatory level.

There are more values ​​to be able to use a talent detection, as could the presence of more or less fast and/or slow fibers, Depending on its modality or specialty (for example, a sprinter has a greater presence of fast fibers than a climber).

To know well the presence of more or less fibers, indirect tests can be carried out with an average percentage of determining the result or invasive tests well, Type Muscle biopsy, that reliability is total but is very invasive for the athlete and is not recommended, Only in research.

As a conclusion we can say that the athlete is not born, If not what is done, with which, until there are hormonal changes due to biological age, its environment and growth will be decisive, for when it arrives at the determining ages (from 13-14 years) where the genetic potential that can contain is shown.

Even so, It won't be even about 20 years that its growth will close and it will really be seen what are the real values ​​of the physiological variables shown above. Therefore, We must not rule out an athlete or promise a “hopeful” future to a kid of 14 years, Everything has its process and as coaches, Sports or family directors should not precipitate ourselves in the selection of the runners who are part of our team.