bodaciousguy

https://www.olympic-usa.org/education...spring2003.pdf on page 4

Each factor is rated by the percentage of Olympians who identified it as a factor.

I thought this was an interesting read. Number 1 is "Dedication and Persistance" at 58%

ElJamoquio

#6: Natural Talent, 22%

#7: Delusional Athletes, 100%.

wfrogge

PEDs didnt make the list.......

Snuffleupagus

+100

Unless your sport is curling, world class genes are necessary for Olympic contention.

botto 

yep. i know an olympic gold medalist.

all i need to do is go for a ride with him to remind myself that i'm a talentless hack on the bike.

LT Intolerant

IMO (as someone who is the furthest thing away from the Olympic "ideal")...

# 1-7 = genetics
# 8 = early access to great coaching
# 9 = hard work and perseverance
# 10 = big dose of luck!

gene r

Bob Dopolina 

#1. Staying healthy / avoiding injury.

If you can't do this nothing else matters.

HillMut

I forget where I heard it or who said it, but it went something like "the best cyclist is the world is sitting on a couch eating chips". You can't do anything w/o the drive and dedication.

Looks like its an interesting read, good find.

boyze

The odds that the most genetically suited person (combined physical and mental) for cycling would ever even try the sport is near 0.

A more interesting thought is the number of could be intellectual Einsteins that will never receive a formal eduation. But I suppose that discussion point belongs in a different forum.

Hocam

I guess bow legs and asthma means I'm not that genetic super cyclist huh?

HillMut

if you're eating chips and watching judge judy , you might have a chance...

wfrogge

Alexi Grewal is that you?

ElJamoquio

I disagree for the developed world. Truly exceptional endurance athletes are quite distinguishable by the time they're ~15, to an extent that's even discernable in silly phys ed classes.

Hocam

I wasn't even born when he made the 7-11 team, and I only know that because I just wiki'd his name.

wfrogge

He has asthma and won a gold medal before any of the good medicine was around.

Snuffleupagus

Truth. In elementary school when most kids "ran" the mile in 10 to 20 minutes there was one kid doing it in 7:30.

When most flag football games involved waddling, there was always that one kid who'd return the ball at a dead sprint from one end of the field to the other in 6 seconds.

True talent is pretty obvious, and if it isn't developed young, it'll never develop to it's potential.

Bob Dopolina 

He blood doped to win that medal. He probably only needed 1 lung.

asgelle

Perhaps, but since it was legal at the time, blood boosting was no different than any other effective training method, and there's no reason to suppose his competitors weren't doing the same.

wfrogge

99% of cycling pros for the past 40 years have been doping so whats your point?

Bob Dopolina 

Although it was not yet illegal doesn't mean it was sanctioned or even acceptable. Part of the reason it wasn't banned (and a continuing problem even after it was banned) was that no test existed at the time.

Just like the masking agent Delgado was caught using (not baned yet but announced to be included on the list of substances to be banned the following year) all those involved knew it was cheating. Some even "confessed" later. One only confesses to things one feels guilt about, or some wrong doing.

Grewel (and 6 others on the team) used unethical methods to give the US it's first Olympic cycling medal since 1912.

Like someone mentioned earlier, PEDs weren't on the list but I wonder if they would have made it if the questionairre was anonymous and included athletes in the Olympic program but not selected for the Olympic team.

asgelle

Acceptable is in the eye of the beholder, and the reasons why it wasn't banned are irrelevant. The fact is that blood boosting was a legal practice in 1984 and there was no reason for an athlete not to avail himself of it. There's a reason we don't make laws retroactive.

Bob Dopolina 

That's a nice sidestep you've got there. Did it come with ethical blinders or did you order them separately?

asgelle

It's the same ethical system that let's me eat Cliff Bars during a race now and not worry about whether or not they might be banned in the future. Do you have a problem with the U.S. using Superbike II at Atlanta because it doesn't conform to today's UCI regulations?

Anyway, here's what Les Earnest, Chairman of the USCF Technical Commission, which oversees rule enforcement and disciplinary actions, had to say on the subject. https://www.stanford.edu/~learnest/cyclops/stoned.htm including,
"The article states that:
'As of early 1984, Olympic policy in this country stated that blood doping was unacceptable under any condition.'
Having reviewed all available documentation, I find no evidence that such a policy existed at that time. In late 1983 the USOC declined to invest in a proposed research project involving blood boosting, but there is no evidence that they took a position about the practice itself. More to the point, there was, and still is, nothing in the written regulations of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or the USOC that takes a position on blood boosting."

Hocam

This is the problem with cycling.

You finally find a pro that has something in common with you (if he had asthma, that means I can do it too!) and it turns out he's a doper.

Blech.

asgelle

And you base this on what?