I see it all the time. Incredible times at 11,12,13 only to absolutely disappear. I remember the Garason ( might be spelling wrong) family from the mid 1980s, for example, but l am seeing kids from overseas countries on the Internet running super fast times as well nowadays. I know most of them will not get much faster. Is the reason they have hit their ceiling, burnout, or everyone catches up to them and they give up?
in soccer we have a similar occurence of "U10 juggle kings" who in some percentage are useless by HS varsity for lack of foot speed or the fact that the skill level required to be exceptional continues to rise, and you become average or worse if you don't keep improving. if everyone gets faster and faster and you are glacial or plateaued it wiil matter less and less that you used to be technically impressive.
re TF, i noticed this in the age group records. the pros and future olympians show up very little early ages. they start to show up like 13/14 and mostly HS. my guess is the early records matured faster or ended up offramped into some other sport or interest eg football or basketball. my soccer backup in select turned into a MLB relief pitcher.
that being said, a typical record is so impressive you are probably serviceable well up the ladder. a kid who jumps 19-20' in LJ could barely improve and compete well through HS into something like D3. they probably won't suck. but to keep winning all the way up it needs to keep going out feet more.
this is one reason i get annoyed with those who give elementary school sports so much meaning and parental intensity. i made my big improvements at the growth spurts. once in junior high, where suddenly everyone who wasn't sure now wanted me on their soccer team; and once in HS. in terms of the records, a lot is about when you hit those jumps. the folks obsessed with how their kid or the others do in U6 teeball, get a life. the kids completely reshuffle 2-3 times after that. if your kid doesn't come out well on the shuffles who cares if you taught him to catch well in kindergarten. at a point it's do you have a 95 mph fastball or can you run like a deer or hit the ball 350'.
Because there aren't that many kids training at a high level at those ages. Then you get to high school and suddenly there's a much larger talent pool. Your times may continue improving but you keep falling back place-wise and that has to be discouraging.
I see it all the time. Incredible times at 11,12,13 only to absolutely disappear. I remember the Garason ( might be spelling wrong) family from the mid 1980s, for example, but l am seeing kids from overseas countries on the Internet running super fast times as well nowadays. I know most of them will not get much faster. Is the reason they have hit their ceiling, burnout, or everyone catches up to them and they give up?
Obviously, and this has been covered before, the best 11-13 year olds are not always the best adults 5-7 years later. This is mostly because even extremely fast 11-13 year olds are unlikely to be the fastest adults even though they are much more likely to be 'in the mix'.
There are possibly also some who do "give up". Bryce Love would be one example.
Then some, do in fact become very good adult athletes. Jordan Hasay, Raevyn Rogers, Athing Mu are three examples.
In boys, it is hitting puberty early and developing much faster than the other kids. On my kid's 2011 soccer team, there is a boy who is 5'5" and is very close to having facial hair. He is build like a 16 year old. If you put him on the track and had him run a 400, he would easily beat most 12 year olds who are very serious and compete on a high level in junior T&F. But I am sure by the time high school comes around and everyone else catches up, he will fade into the crowd as the advantage fades.
For girls, it can be the reverse. Pre-pubescent girls are string beans and have a very light frame, making them perfectly designed for distance running. Puberty for these girls can result in bigger hips, chest and more fat storage around the waist, hips and backside.
There are certainly other factors. A big problem with such a big focus on stratification in youth sports with national competitions, traveling teams, etc. is that kids reach a "been there done that" point with their sport and get bored and drop out. There was a study of elite soccer for kids under age 12 that found that kids who were in elite traveling teams under the age of 12 rarely went on to play in college or professionally. I think that kids in the junior high/high school age group have such a huge capacity to learn new sports and perfect new skills both in sport and other endeavors (art, music, drama, science, etc.) that confining them to one sport can be suffocating. And that may be why so many of the great athletes played so many different sports when they were in high school. Hyper-specialization can get a kid noticed at a very early age in sports, but it is not really a sustainable way to develop a great athlete.
I see it all the time. Incredible times at 11,12,13 only to absolutely disappear. I remember the Garason ( might be spelling wrong) family from the mid 1980s, for example, but l am seeing kids from overseas countries on the Internet running super fast times as well nowadays. I know most of them will not get much faster. Is the reason they have hit their ceiling, burnout, or everyone catches up to them and they give up?
Probably because the attrition rate for training like a pro at 11-12 is pretty high.
in soccer we have a similar occurence of "U10 juggle kings" who in some percentage are useless by HS varsity for lack of foot speed or the fact that the skill level required to be exceptional continues to rise, and you become average or worse if you don't keep improving. if everyone gets faster and faster and you are glacial or plateaued it wiil matter less and less that you used to be technically impressive.
re TF, i noticed this in the age group records. the pros and future olympians show up very little early ages. they start to show up like 13/14 and mostly HS. my guess is the early records matured faster or ended up offramped into some other sport or interest eg football or basketball. my soccer backup in select turned into a MLB relief pitcher.
that being said, a typical record is so impressive you are probably serviceable well up the ladder. a kid who jumps 19-20' in LJ could barely improve and compete well through HS into something like D3. they probably won't suck. but to keep winning all the way up it needs to keep going out feet more.
A big part in sports could be that those kids who excel are simply more physically mature than their peers so they get by just being bigger and faster. U10 kid born in January could be a whole year older than many of the opponents (or teammates) and at that age a year is a huge amount of time. Those mature kids do not learn the skills necessary because they can just run away (or over in some sports) others. Soccer has experimented with bio-banding that puts kids against kids of similar ability regardless of age. All of the sudden the super fast 12 year old is playing with 14 year olds who can run just as fast or are just as tall and they then have to learn skill and technique.
Running is less complicated but also has a physical maturity factor.
I think another aspect in running could be that it is not one of the cool sports. A lot of kids want to be on a more traditional team. If you are a fast runner you likely spend most of your time running alone. That is not fun for a lot of kids. If they are fast, soccer can use that speed and endurance and is a cooler sport in the eyes of most.
I see it all the time. Incredible times at 11,12,13 only to absolutely disappear. I remember the Garason ( might be spelling wrong) family from the mid 1980s, for example, but l am seeing kids from overseas countries on the Internet running super fast times as well nowadays. I know most of them will not get much faster. Is the reason they have hit their ceiling, burnout, or everyone catches up to them and they give up?
Probably because the attrition rate for training like a pro at 11-12 is pretty high.
That is true across all sports. So many kids stop playing sports at age 11 (see Aspen Institute's Project Play data). For a lot it just stops being fun. The adults do things that make it easier on them rather than doing what is best for the kids. Or adults start taking it far too seriously (as coaches and parents).
Soccer is crazy competitive, I know a guy who's been training since young and is a great athlete even ran 51.0 in the 400m indoors as a lanky senior with minimal training (probably a potential amazing miler). He was All-American in hs but he's just a decent D1 player now who *might* go pro. That's how competitive soccer is, he's strong, fast, and has great skills, but it's competitive as hell. And I'm pretty sure a lot of soccer players who are D1 can runner faster than a 53 in a 400m with some training.