LEILA FADEL, HOST:
At the FIFA Club World Cup here in the U.S. this week, British soccer player Jobe Bellingham made his debut for Borussia Dortmund. By joining the German club, he's following in the footsteps of his big brother, Jude.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER #1: Bellingham has it now, and Bellingham has scored brilliantly.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
That's Jude finding the net for Dortmund in 2021, as heard on CBS Sports. Why do we see so many sets of siblings succeeding at the highest level of sport, like Jason and Travis Kelce, both Super Bowl winners for different teams?
ROBIN TAYLOR: We did some research with people that had made it to the very top. And they talked very heavily and very positively about the role they perceived their siblings to have in their success.
MARTIN: That's Robin Taylor, a professor at the School of Health & Human Performance at Dublin City University. He's studied the effect of siblings on talent development in elite sport.
TAYLOR: There are a number of different mechanisms that help support siblings to develop skill sets. And one is rivalry, so competitive stuff. You know, being in the garden doing one-v-ones - using the Bellingham example - and wanting to kick each other and challenge each other, et cetera.
FADEL: NBA superstar Steph Curry told basketballnews.com that's how it was for him growing up with his younger brother, fellow pro Seth Curry.
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STEPH CURRY: There's times we're in the backyard...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Laughter).
CURRY: ...And we're acting like we're NBA players and, like, shooting fake game-winners.
FADEL: It clearly prepared him for moments like these.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER #2: Steph for the win. Yes, sir.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER #2: His eighth career game-winner.
FADEL: That's Curry leading his Golden State Warriors past the Houston Rockets in an NBA game back in 2022.
MARTIN: Robin Taylor also found that having a supportive sibling helps.
TAYLOR: There's a lot of empathy or emotional, interpersonal skills that siblings were demonstrating between each other to help the other person maybe overcome something.
MARTIN: That's exactly what we see with these two.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER #3: That's it.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER #3: And the sisters create history.
FADEL: Venus and Serena Williams won their third Olympic gold medal in women's tennis doubles in London in 2012. They've often talked about the support they receive from one another. Here's Serena Williams speaking with NPR in 2009.
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SERENA WILLIAMS: Being kind of the little sister and the one that wasn't as strong and wasn't as good yet gave me encouragement and gave me the fight that I have in my game.
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SISTER SLEDGE: (Singing) We are family.
Hey, hey, sing it to me.
I got all my sisters with me.
MARTIN: OK, Leila, tell the truth - how many of these athletes...
FADEL: (Laughter).
MARTIN: ... Did you actually know? And...
FADEL: I knew the Williams sisters.
MARTIN: OK. And the sports? Did you actually know what sports we were discussing?
FADEL: I knew tennis. No, I knew tennis.
MARTIN: OK.
FADEL: And I know the Kelce brothers 'cause of Taylor Swift, shamefully.
MARTIN: OK, fair. OK, fair.
FADEL: (Laughter).
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SISTER SLEDGE: (Singing) I got all my sisters with me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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