maligned

A few thoughts on this: 1. I agree that wrestling involves a wider variety of situational skills development than these sports that were studied. 2. I agree with you that if the motivation is there, the best chance for success is certainly there. 3. This paper, however, doesn't argue against specialization or the need for max hours to be elite. Notice that the elite athletes DID specialize starting at Age 15 (freshman year of high school). And notice that they had spent considerable time on their sport by that time (5.5 hours per week from Age 9 to 15, compared to 8 hours per week in the same period for the start-early, near-elites). Notice then that elites' lifetime hours were virtually identical to the near-elites by the age we finish high school because they averaged 14.5 hours per week, year-round, all during the high school years. That's a good high school team's training and competition volume--every week, all year. 4. I really respect what your family has accomplished, but I read that the athletes in the "elite" group here are Olympic level in their sport. If your kids are placing high in the state and going to good schools, but not quite Olympic level, they're "near-elite" for this study's purposes. Could it be that there's an implied conclusion here that a little more time can be spent on other sports, general physical development, and general enjoyment of competition in addition to your preferred sport UNTIL ABOUT AGE 14 OR 15? Then go all in on one sport if the passion is there because it's not too late to become high-level and the passion for training volume has potential to be permanently unquenchable?

Sadly, I don't have the journal library subscription to read the full article. I just saw this slide summary with a couple comments by an exercise physiologist I follow.

Below is a slide by @wod_science on Instagram summarizing a Danish study of 250 elite and "near-elite" athletes (average age 24.5) from six sports: weightlifting, cycling, swimming, track & field, rowing, skiing. For the elite athletes, they didn't start specializing until average age 15--but the near-elite group started at an average age of 11.5. You can see the amount of time invested by the elite group rapidly catches up with the near-elite group by age 19--and far exceeds the near-elite group after age 19. Burnout is real and the right timing for when to specialize is a very real question. (Counter-point to this article is of course that none of these sports is highly technical like baseball, basketball, or, to a certain degree, wrestling. Very enlightening, though, in terms of how it illuminates the motivation level of the later specialization group.)

Yeah, just not sure how everyone fits. Lillard, Gilcher, South, Major, Chase Leech all at 165? Rogotzke down to 174 and Washington up to 184. Lowery at 157 possibly? Despite Bahl getting a handful of pretty good open tourney wins last year, that 149/157 couplet will be very inexperienced. I have no idea what the plans are internally (and it seems like the cut for any of them would be brutal), but you certainly wonder if one of those 4 experienced 165s would try to go down. Anybody close to the program have thoughts on where things are headed?

A few random thoughts: Purdue and IU look to be pretty evenly matched; but IU has 7 ranked to Purdue's 5 and are ranked higher in 5 of 9 weights with at least one guy mentioned, so InterMat's own Duals rankings of #29 Purdue and #30 Indiana seem strange based strictly on individual rankings. Should be a fun dual if both teams stay healthy. I haven't understood the reason for everyone having 2023 champ Alirez ranked above 2024 champ Mendez. In my opinion Mendez 1) was more dominant during his championship season than Alirez, 2) looked better than Alirez at Olympic Team Trials recently, and 3) (not an opinion) beat Alirez in a Beat the Streets exhibition super match a couple months ago. Anyway--time will tell, but I think Mendez is the clear title favorite at 141. Christian Carroll seems ranked a little low based on his offseason results. But he hasn't proven himself in folk style as much, and he hasn't proven how he can handle the 197 weight cut over time either. Blake Boarman lost a shocker at his conference tournament to miss out on NCAAs last year or he'd be ranked in the preseason at 133 for Chattanooga. As it is, he's probably within 2 or 3 spots of being ranked.

InterMat preseason rankings of Purdue & IU guys are below. (Flo has guys slotted very similarly, but only through #24, so I'm showing IM) 125: Ramos, Purdue #5, Moran, IU #26 133: Rini, IU #27 141: Clark, Purdue #26, Porter, IU #32 149: None 157: Blaze, Purdue #18 165: Lillard, IU #15, Buell, Purdue #22 174: Baumann, Purdue #31 184: Washington, IU #23 197: Sollars, IU #26 285: Bullock, IU #16 Team (tournament): Purdue #29t Team (dual): Purdue #29, IU #30 Ranked ex-IHSAA stars wrestling at other schools: 141: Jesse Mendez, Ohio St., #2 141: Sergio Lemley, Michigan, #8 157: J Conway, Missouri, #32 197: Silas Allred, Nebraska, #9 197: Evan Bates, Northwestern, #25 197: Christian Carroll, Iowa St., #33 Did I miss anyone??

I definitely agree. If Sadulaev goes, it will be a very entertaining weight class. (If Aitmukhan can make it back down to 92kg, it would add another interesting name. He hasn't wrestled 92kg since last year's worlds, though, so it seems like a no for him.)

Both of those guys for you looked outstanding. (No shame in losing to Japan at 74kg and lower.) You have a lot to look forward to for sure.

Wow. You're usually more evidence-based than this. It's part of why i like tracking this thread. Shapiro beats Rezaei. Lockett techs Shapiro at our Trials. 20yo Rezaei beats 18yo Lockett, 3-3, and Rezaei would win 100% of the time. You're funny today. Also, if Masoumi is too hurt to wrestle, he shouldn't wrestle. If he's fit enough to wrestle, his performances mean something. Everyone wrestles hurt. He had two tight matches. Zare or Geno wouldn't have tight matches against Keuter or the Turk with 2 broken wrists. Every result means something.

U.S. win the U20 team title with 9 medals to your 7, but I confess I'm jealous of your 3 golds (and all at Olympic weights!) compared to our 1. Great performance by you guys. Very strong team. @The Genius , your assessments for the Day 1 group were on the right track except for a couple things. Khorramdel and Yousefi were better than you thought, and Yamashita of Japan at 70kg turned out to be a world-beater and prevented your Karampour finals projection. Khorramdel, wow. He navigated a brutal draw and just kept winning. He doesn't look so different physically from Amouzad, by the way. Reza has to feel good getting the win over Lockett, who I think would probably win that match more than 50% of the time. Credit to Reza for getting the job done this time. And Masoumi is Masoumi--although he may have gotten a bit more resistance than expected in a couple of his matches.

@Dingo Brigade Did you see that little LJB won silver at U20 worlds yesterday? Congrats to him. It's a shame LJB couldn't have had a tiny bit more decency in letting things die so we could congratulate him. Anyway, I hope we get to see more of Otto B having success in the future.

With the 2 finalists and 2 more Top 10s from today's group, Iran wrapped up another Greco team title too after taking the U17 title already. Shockingly, the U.S. won 5 medals and had 11 Top 10s from the 20 Greco weights at the two events. That's our most in quite a while. Hopefully it means we're developing slightly. Also, congratulations to @LJB's son for winning his first world-level medal by taking silver at 63kg yesterday.

Anthony Lapsley vs. Kevin Carr was an insane show by both guys of skill meets athleticism. I always thought Kevin was the most truly gifted athlete of the Carr brothers. A few more throwbacks: Nick Corpe of Elkhart Memorial was another multi-sport, freak-of-nature, do-anything athlete. Ben Wissel of Richmond always made me raise my eyebrows. James Torres of Lake C too. All of that said, I think Vernon Cannon of LC vs. James Leavell of DC in OT--the year that Leavell pinned his way through the most prestigious national folk style tournament, NHSCA senior nationals--might be the the matchup of the most combined athletic talent I ever saw on an Indiana mat.

I second that one. Our 171 state placer wasn't ultra-athletic, but he was super slick. I remember him facing Brimm during James' sophomore year and completely grabbing air off of a great single-leg setup. Brimm was already gone. Dude was definitely athletic. Related sidenote that I shared on a college thread: I recently saw James held Cael Sanderson to one of a handful of his college regular decisions, 5-0, during Brimm's third year and Cael's second year in college.

How long has Jowkar been in the UK? Was he trained in Iran or only born there?