The Olympics should be a good test. Do countries which select Olympic candidates damn-near from birth (China, as one example), and train (groom) them through their young lives to compete, do better than countries which do not?
This seems a bit hard to isolate from confounding variables though.For example, China might breed and groom basketball players for elite competition (my understanding is they do have some kind of athlete breeding system going on,) but not have access to as high level of basketball coaches and trainers as a country like the United States where basketball is more entrenched in the culture, and it would be hard to measure the impact of these influences separately.
The Olympics should be a good test. Do countries which select Olympic candidates damn-near from birth (China, as one example), and train (groom) them through their young lives to compete, do better than countries which do not?
This seems a bit hard to isolate from confounding variables though.For example, China might breed and groom basketball players for elite competition (my understanding is they do have some kind of athlete breeding system going on,) but not have access to as high level of basketball coaches and trainers as a country like the United States where basketball is more entrenched in the culture, and it would be hard to measure the impact of these influences separately.