Is swimming "eating its young?" Are they being burned out with mindless yardage? Do they have to do volume training for long events? Are we missing masters swimmers who were burned out as youths? As to the kids, what can we do to stop the cannabalism?
And then they kick you out when you are 18 saying go swim in college, or have a nice life. It seems like if you haven't "made it" or about to make it by the time you are 18 you aren't going to "get anywhere" with swimming.
This is not unique to swimming. In fact, swimming is one of the few sports where you can compete on a high level with the elite until you are 18. By age 12 or 13 in basketball and football and perhaps a bit later in baseball you are either on the elite/select/varsity team or playing with the other scrubs in some local rec league. In pretty much all sports the big age of decision on committment is around 14/15. Plus, the number of teams dwindles as you get on in your teen years so naturally only the better kids will stay around. The nice thing about swimming is there are still a ton of teams for kids even if they aren't elite, but can still train with some darn good swimmers until the college years.
We can all cite an example here and there of some kids who made the jump at age 17 but the vast majority aren't going to do that in any sport, period.
And then they kick you out when you are 18 saying go swim in college, or have a nice life. It seems like if you haven't "made it" or about to make it by the time you are 18 you aren't going to "get anywhere" with swimming.
This is not unique to swimming. In fact, swimming is one of the few sports where you can compete on a high level with the elite until you are 18. By age 12 or 13 in basketball and football and perhaps a bit later in baseball you are either on the elite/select/varsity team or playing with the other scrubs in some local rec league. In pretty much all sports the big age of decision on committment is around 14/15. Plus, the number of teams dwindles as you get on in your teen years so naturally only the better kids will stay around. The nice thing about swimming is there are still a ton of teams for kids even if they aren't elite, but can still train with some darn good swimmers until the college years.
We can all cite an example here and there of some kids who made the jump at age 17 but the vast majority aren't going to do that in any sport, period.
