According to a recent article in Wired Magazine, Peter Vint, a researcher with the US Olympic Committee believes that athletic skills can be learned even to the Wayne Gretzky level of performance. Such talent has long been assumed to be innate. "Coaches tend to think you either have it or you don't," Vint says. But Vint rejects the notion that Gretzky-style magic is unteachable.

One thing the article fails to mention but that further supports the argument for training to a Gretzky level of performance is Gretzky's commitment to practice and his attitude towards it summed in these quotes:

"The only way a kid is going to practice is if it's total fun for him... and it was for me."

"I wasn't naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that's the way I'll be as a coach."

Read the full article at: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-06/ff_mindgames