Ech... Don't lump me in with Foley. I'm not romanticizing. I'm talking scientific data. While true that no system is perfect, the American system just needs more balance. It produces at an elite level for sure, but I'm also talking about actual, international sports. Tennis, Soccer, et al. Obviously we rule the Olympics, and we probably always will, but we also have the largest sports-involved population in the world. BY A LOT. Per capita, we don't do as well as most other countries. God. I do sound like Foley. Yuck. Please forgive me.
Also, I'd like to hear your opinion about how "teaching technique over competition is a fairy tale?"
No intent to lump you in with Foley ... that's why i didn't quote you.
I can't speak about other sports but will caution about the per capita argument. Most other countries are a statistical small sample error, and/or specialize in a very small number of sports. I'd guess that clustering countries into groups would have a normalizing effect.
About "teaching technique over competition" being a fairy tale: First let's ignore the fact that Let's assume there's some truth to it -- that there is specialized training that is focused solely on technique. Who is getting it, and where? Certainly not all athletes everywhere -- nobody has enough coaches to provide that level of training in all the goat-roping cliffside hinterland hamlets of the world. Perhaps at the academies that might be true.
But who gets into the academies? Excluding political favoritism and bribes (though those are hard to exclude in much of the world): those who are judged to have superstar potential. And how do they get identified as such?
That's a competition. I can't say if it's a volume of tournaments, but there absolutely is competition to get noticed for those spots. It begins early. And it's far more intense than anything we face. In much of the world, families and society put enormous pressure on children to achieve at high levels, with sometimes severe consequences for failing. Parents get turned down for jobs. Families get shunned by society. Sometimes junior gets the fist and the belt.
Now, back to the technique training part. Much of the rest of the world fights dirty -- punching, slapping, eye poking, clawing, scratching, biting, and the like. Is that the technique they're being taught? If so, that's time not spent on teaching wrestling technique. And aren't those tactics a means of raw competitiveness?
And then there are the other symptoms of extreme competitiveness gone awry: the official packing heat on the mat at Russian cadet nationals ... the Azerbaijani coaches getting busted with suitcases full of drugs and doping equipment at their Juniors hotel in France ... etc.
So, yeah, there might be some specialized training going on at the extreme upper levels, but only a Foley could pretend it's without intense competition.
