Is talent irrelevant for great success?

This seems to now be an all-women thread but this short male sprinter read the USS article above.... I am a fly/***/im guy. The article says IMers are generally shorter (etc.). The author doesn't say being shorter and having shorter arms is good for IM. I suspect instead that because shorter people with shorter arms are not good freestyle sprinters nor backstroke, they choose to focus on other events such as IM. IM requires a balance of skill and more endurance over the same distance than freestyle. Phelps is an example of a world class freestyler who is also a world class IMer. But not many like that....maybe Lochte. One oddity in the article - women breastrokers had smaller torsos relative to waist, while mail breastrokers had larger torsos relative to waist. That is about the only set of measurements that was not similar for males and females. He says female breastrokers use their legs more. I wonder if there is another factor - let's acknowledge that female anatomy is different from males in the "torso area." I wonder if smaller "torsos" simply are a bigger benefit in breastroke than in say, backstroke?

This seems to now be an all-women thread but this short male sprinter read the USS article above.... I am a fly/***/im guy. The article says IMers are generally shorter (etc.). The author doesn't say being shorter and having shorter arms is good for IM. I suspect instead that because shorter people with shorter arms are not good freestyle sprinters nor backstroke, they choose to focus on other events such as IM. IM requires a balance of skill and more endurance over the same distance than freestyle. Phelps is an example of a world class freestyler who is also a world class IMer. But not many like that....maybe Lochte. One oddity in the article - women breastrokers had smaller torsos relative to waist, while mail breastrokers had larger torsos relative to waist. That is about the only set of measurements that was not similar for males and females. He says female breastrokers use their legs more. I wonder if there is another factor - let's acknowledge that female anatomy is different from males in the "torso area." I wonder if smaller "torsos" simply are a bigger benefit in breastroke than in say, backstroke?