D3athleteTake wrote:
I’m a d3 guy nowhere near fast enough for my opinion to matter much, but 24 is totally fine. If you turn 18 senior year of high school, took a gap year (not rare), enter college at 19, and redshirt a year for whatever reason that gets you to 24. Even if the circumstances leading to someone still being in the NCAA at 24/25 ish are a bit different than that it’s fine by me.
I have other issues with older foreign athletes taking roster spots at public, tax-subsidized universities in the U.S. and athletes not entering the NCAA till they’re 22+ (idk if that’s the case here, didn’t read into it much).
Americans are rising to the level of competition brought about by the influx of foreign athletes. Kinda cherry-picking an event here, but the indoor nationals men’s 3k was “won” by a 22yo foreign athlete, followed by 3 American athletes who are normal college aged. Men’s mile was also cleaned up by normal aged Americans.
Yes, based on the OP's info, Nielsen was 18 when she graduated HS, and she was 19 when she came to college. Ayyildiz was already 22+ when she entered the NCAA