Fast-tracking within formal sport coach education: the perspectives of British orienteering coaches and coach developers

Sport coaching is embedded with ego and sociocentric beliefs which assumes that embodied experience as an elite athlete is necessary to become an effective coaching practitioner, at the expense of knowledge obtained via formal professional development opportunities. Problematically, national governing bodies have legitimised these beliefs by actively promoting the process of fast-tracking, which entitles elite athletes to accelerated progression through formal coach education courses, despite the potential issues this may cause. Consequently, the aim of this research was to understand and explore coaches’ and coach developers’ perspectives towards fast-tracking within British Orienteering’s formal coach education provision. Multiple qualitative data collection methods were employed, including virtual dyadic interviews (n = 2) and focus groups (n = 2) with coaches (n = 8) and coach developers (n = 3), in addition to the analysis of documents related to formal coach education courses. A phronetic iterative approach to data analysis was adopted, with three themes constructed: (1) knowing what good looks like: privileging practitioner experience and endorsing fast-track routes; (2) obtaining respect and coaches’ preference for fast-tracking; and (3) a flawed coach education system: creating a cottage industry and sympathising with coaches. The findings are critically discussed and situated within the specific sport coaching and broader professional learning literature.