It's pretty common to hear that an American athlete is going to win the next world or Olympic sprint title. The last time there was news from the World Championships in Helsinki, where the Americans had a clear advantage over the others in individual sprint disciplines. They have won more titles than all other nations combined. Of course, it doesn't happen every time, but the advantage of American athletes, which is given by their high level, is obvious. While athletes from other countries come and go among the sports elite, Americans always stay there. Moreover, it is impossible to imagine the sprint elite without Americans. They now dominate the short distance running championships. Since the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, they have dominated the entire history of modern athletics.
To substantiate this point, I present the so-called ranking of Olympic athletes of all nations who have ever won prizes at the modern Olympic Games. For each gold medal, the nation gets 3 points, silver 2 points and bronze 1 point. For example, in the 2004 Olympics, the Americans won every medal in the men's 200 meters. In the women's 200 meters, the Jamaican won the gold, the American won the silver and the Bahamian won the bronze. The Americans will thus get 8 points, the Jamaicans – 2 points, the Bahamians – 1 point. By adding up the points for all years, we get the following statistics:
100 meters:
USA – 120
Germany – 22
Great Britain - 20
Canada – 14
Australia - 13
Other countries – 69
200 meters:
USA – 117th
Germany – 18
Jamaica - 16
Australia - 14
Great Britain - 12
Other countries – 63
400 meters:
USA – 97
Germany – 22
Great Britain 20
Jamaica - 13
Australia – 12
Other countries – 52
In any case, the Americans are way ahead of the others. However, even taking into account such a huge advantage, it can still be wrong to say that athletes from other countries are much more poorly trained. During the twentieth century, there were stars among British, Canadian, Caribbean and other sprinters whose achievements became part of sporting history. Many of them are Olympic and world champions. There are also world record holders among them. Now we're talking about Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell and Tonique Williams-Darling. We also remember Linford Christie, Donovan Bailey, Marita Koch and Marie-Jose Perec from the past.
However, the point is that they are the only representatives of their nations. They come to the sport, perform excellently and leave, behind whom there are no compatriots matching their level. But only athletes from the USA show consistently high performance. It is quite difficult to find reasons for this, considering that the level of the training process is also high in many other countries. In fact, it is not the training process itself that differentiates states from other countries. Rather, it is a sports system organization that selects, educates and motivates athletes.
Prevailing approach to athletics
There are two models of organization of the sports system in the world.
The first is the state financing system developed in most countries. The state sports department supervises sports associations that provide athletes with good conditions for training, medical care, preparation opportunities and the like. Becoming takes care of athletes from the beginning of their career and they feel comfortable in such conditions.
Many of them come to athletics and train for fun, considering running from this point of view: "I have the opportunity to train. I'll train for fun first and see if I'm good at running. If I'm good, I'll pay more attention to training. If not, I'll just enjoy the level I've reached. My country will take care of me and give me the opportunity to afford such "enjoyment" training." For some of them, sprinting is a hobby. Some of them are doing well locally with a time of 10.4-10.2 seconds for 100 meters and they think that is good enough. Those who are highly motivated progress further and sometimes win prizes at international level. But most such sprinters do not even reach the 10-second mark, let alone the 9.8-9.7 seconds necessary for major competitions.
Thus, in such a system there is no good selection process and no highly competitive environment.
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