LogFAQs > #956394100

I get the feelings that Americans take athletics much more seriously from a young age than do most other countries. I know Japan is crazy about high school baseball, and I presume that European and South American kids take up soccer from an early age, but Americans are like that with tons of sports.

Kids (usually ones with means) are encouraged to take up sports like soccer, tennis, swimming, and gymnastics from an extremely young age. Once they progress beyond primary school, they'll enter high schools where the students skilled in football, basketball, soccer, baseball/softball, swimming, track, or wrestling occupy the top spots of the social pecking order. All of these sports have organized teams, leagues, competitive schedules, and funding. Youth athletics are just an ingrained part of American life, and I'd wager that things we just assume to be normal here (like "pep rallies" and "rival schools") might be weird as hell in other countries.

Anyway, you take all that time, effort, and money spent on several different sports, grow it up a few years, and you're left with tons of athletes who'd naturally qualify for the Olympics (without the need for large-scale national organization like you might see with China or Russia).

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Yoblazer
https://imgur.com/gByqgPg