She will soon be an Olympic champion....

[100m001]

@James_Smith

Over here, ‘selection’ is as pedestrian as it gets. Morphobiomechanics isn’t even an available skill set to coaches at the developmental level and as a result SO MANY athletes are incorrectly selected for various sports; and then we glamorize youth competition and force early specialization to boot. It’s a disaster.

So well meaning yet uninformed parents and coaches alike are misguidedly, relative to Olympic potential, enthusiastic about youngsters who demonstrate excellence, not relative to the Olympic standard, but relative to their young peers.

So while the youths participation and results are emotionally gratifying to coaches and parents- they often mean nothing relative to their likelihood of standing on the podium at the Olympics in the future.

The issue is deeply rooted in psycho-social factors as well as the obvious physical preparatory ones.

It really comes down to the fact that Americans are wreckless, and in my view borderline criminal, with their efforts to glamorize youth competition and force early specialization.

Your entire post was excellent, but I had to highlight the above.