^^^that. the same goes for something like baseball, where the coaching you get and the level of play around you has a HUGE impact on how well you develop. i have a friend who saw five kids in his high school class get drafted by MLB teams. is that because peabody, massachusetts has an unusually high number of freakishly talented baseball players? no, it's because all the boys play baseball and the athletic kids are funneled to baseball and coached very well from a young age. they won the babe ruth league world series when my buddy was 14. and when the initial selection is going on, the kids who are ahead developmentally have an advantage. that's not to say that some younger kids don't eventually rise to the top, or even that some younger kids aren't always obviously more athletic (viz. nate robinson). but it is to say that, in aggregate, relatively older kids have an advantage.
don't take my word for it, go check out the various pieces the science of sport guys have done on this over the years:
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009/01/matthew-effect.htmlhttp://www.sportsscientists.com/2013/02/long-term-athlete-development.htmlalso, one other point: i think that, even for "pure" sports like track and field or swimming, it's actually not that interesting to look at people like asafa, bolt, michael phelps, etc. they are true freaks and it's hard to extrapolate anything from them. how many guys have run 9.7? like, six? but dozens have run 10.0 and hundreds have run 10.3, which is still an elite time! i feel like you can learn much more interesting to look at the broader picture of elite athletes.
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