The study aimed to design a long-term development model for Iraqi athletes. This research was conducted with a qualitative approach and the grounded theory method and Glaser's emergent approach. The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with experts and experienced individuals in the field of talent identification in sports, and their analysis was conducted using Glaser's coding stages, namely, true coding (including open and selective coding) and theoretical coding. In this study, 14 experts and experienced individuals in the field of talent identification in sports were interviewed. Initially, 293 codes were extracted from the interviews. After initial reviews, due to the similarity of some codes, similar codes were merged with each other, and ultimately 102 sub-codes and 12 main codes were obtained from data analysis. Finally, the model for the long-term development of Iraqi athletes was presented. This study, emphasizing the importance of different stages in the long-term development of athletes, especially active initiation and proper training at an early age, showed that paying attention to these factors can have significant positive effects on the growth and success of athletes in the future. These findings help sports officials, practitioners, planners, and policymakers design more effective development programs to promote athletes and achieve more desirable results in this field. They also show that starting actively by forming sports habits from an early age has a significant impact on the future success of athletes.