A top athlete is not the same as a product or service. When we decide to introduce to the market a certain prodcut or service, it's development path begins. Athlete journey has started a long before he acquired the epithet of a top athlete. The product development strategy is developed long before it is introduced to the market. All researches, distributions channels, and marketing tolls are being considered before product is showen to the market. With top athletes, the management strategy is considered when they are already in the middle of their development cycle. A large number of talents were lost due to inadequate or too late implementation od the development strategy. The aim of the research in this master's thesis is to examine what are fundamental factors in the strategy of creating and managing a brand in sports based on the example of top athelts. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for defining the sports brand development strategy through a theoretical prism and real examples of strategy of top athletes. An interview was conducted with top athlete Blanka Vlašić and her coach Joško Vlašić. Based on that, survey is made which was filled out by top athletes. The results of the survey are the most significant contribution of this work, which provides guidlines and framework for developing strategy of a top athlete from the beggining. Key words: sport strategy, top athlete, athletics, sport, Blanka Vlašić, development cycle of a top athlete, marketing in sport, sport management, motivation