In this paper, issue of identification of the psychophysiological and psychological characteristics that distinguish professionally successful highly qualified athletes is considered in the context of solving the problems of psychological selection in high performance sports and improving the methods of predictive assessments. Based on a study of 354 active members of the Russian national sport teams, it has been empirically proven that male athletes who are professionally successful (high-performing athletes) differ from other athletes by more pronounced psychomotor, communication, general activity and, consequently, by more pronounced indicators of general adaptation potential. In turn, women professionally successful in sports are characterized by more pronounced indicators of intellectual endurance, plasticity, motor speed. In addition, they had higher scores on psychomotor, intellectual, general activity indicators of general adaptation potential than their less successful colleagues- sportswomen. Intergroup comparison of the studied characteristics of men and women professionally successful in sports did not reveal any significant differences in the pronouncedness of generalized indices for all types of activity, emotionality and adaptability. In contrast, successful male athletes differed from successful female athletes by more developed skills for modeling and evaluating results. In turn, successful athletes were characterized by higher level of regulatory flexibility and autonomy. The obtained results have a high practical significance for solving the problem of professional success prediction by studying characteristics that provide high level of sport achievements. The results of this research will significantly improve the effectiveness of predictive assessment methods in the domain of professional selection of candidates for national sport teams.