alt Hacker Newsfrom sports i know (hockey), generally the next generational player is identified when they're like 12-13 years old (earlier for Gretzky). You look at the top scorers from the Brick Tournament(9-10 year old kids play in that tournament) from 10 years ago (https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/brick-invitational/201...), 3 of the top 5 scorers were drafted in the first round, and the top goalie was Team Canada's goalie at the world juniors.
edit: went back a few more years, lots of NHLers in the top 5 in scoring in the tournament, but some years are more miss than hit.
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in contrast: the sport i know best, hoops, a common pattern for generational players is for them to be late bloomers because they grow up short, developing skills and competitive toughness, then get lucky and grow a half-foot late in puberty
Can also offer anecdotal support from esports I know about (League of Legends , StarCraft 2, and counterstrike) For StarCraft 2 the best historical players are all child prodigies , same for Formula 1 , all recent World Champions are child prodigies
> from sports i know (hockey), generally the next generational player is identified when they're like 12-13 years old (earlier for Gretzky).
Yeah, I'm really unconvinced by the paper.
1) Adult chess GMs all come from super advanced kids, now. Period. GM Ben Finegold talks about this at length.
2) We know that, for example, hockey success is correlated with birth month. This means that juniors who happen to be slightly larger and promising get more attention and coaching and so wind up being the world class adults, too.
I could be more convinced by academics and music that you need multi-disciplinary education to be world class, but I'd need to see a lot more evidence.
Nevertheless, the single thing I extract from my anecdata is that being top ten in a world class field requires a dedication bordering on psychotic mania. You have to be willing to not just go the extra mile but the mile beyond that and beyond that and ...
Most people are completely put out by the minimal amount of effort to get to the top 1% so they would be stunned by the amount of work you have to put in to get to top 10.
Gretzky is well-known for saying he thinks kids should play multiple sports and avoid hockey in the summer, like he did (IIRC) - he mentioned soccer, etc.