What distinguishes the successful athletes from elite athletes in terms of their self-competencies?

The special status of the elite schools of sport implies targeted support in order to legitimise the existence of the elite schools of sport. The poor track record of sports schools that support summer sports needs to be explained and optimised. The present study investigates the correlations between self-related competences and their differences in age- and performance-differentiated groups. The results show that the greatest differences between the groups exist between the athletes with regard to the stress and threat categories, with the successful athletes in particular showing lower scores on the threat scale (mean = 0.469, SD = 0.36; p = .038, η² = .117) and on the stress-related items (mean = 0.44, SD = 0.37, p ≤ .001, η² = .556). At the same time, the level of certain areas of competence, such as the ability to plan, is higher in the group of top performers (mean = 1.71, p = .071, η² = .093). These differences are evident compared to the younger comparison group and also in comparison to athletes of the same age who have the same support systems but different performance levels. On the one hand, the results show that the stress potential increases with increasing time and that stress resistance is most likely already inherent in young athletes.