Why is USA so successful in so many sports?

But swim lessons for kids is a pretty common occurence from at least the middle class up and we Americans love water. Not sure why but we do. Maybe it stems from those childhood hours spent leaning to swim. Maybe it harks back to something more primituve along with the fact most of us are landlocked and arent constantly exposed to large bodies of water. Theres no doubt we love water though. There are approx nine million swimming pools in the USA including 279,000 commercial/community/public pools and 1200 water parks in the usa. And nearly every state has at least one lake - natural or man made - that allows swimming. Then there are countless creeks, streams, blue holes, springs and even stock ponds people swim in. Love of water seems to come naturally to small children, perhaps because of our in-womb time. And we tend to encourage it with swim lessons and vacations that almost always include swimming and water in some form even if its just a motel pool. Swim teams are not uncommon in schools either. Not every school has a swim team but if the school system doesnt have a team the community often does.

Neighborhood and recreational pools are part of most American families' lives. This means that their children usually start swimming as early as infant stage. Americans adore swimming and ocean and there is no doubt that swimming is once of their specialty when it comes to international sport. Then of course, there is huge budget for athletes, gigantic training stadium, great coaches and a sense of patriotism that serves are driving force for each swimmers to push and make name for themselves and their country. Adding to what others have wrote, competitive swimming starts early. Like at 6 or earlier. In younger days, I worked as a lifeguard for and taught swim lessons to kid at park district pools. Many of those kids would join local swim teams or their high school swim teams.

And that right there is the first major step.

Most Americans will have access to one or both (school or private swim club) for their younger kids to compete in. Really, it’s no different then any other kind of sport league for kid like Soccer (football), Baseball, Football, basketball for example. For many kids, they will swim on their high school teams, and if they are competitive enough, they may get a scholarship to swim for a university. A very small and select few may make it to collage division championships and of course, World and Olympic trials. These days however, many of the the best and fastest are being recognized in their high school years.

Of note, the number of non-American swimmers that do well and medal. Many swim for US universities. Siobhán Haughey , representing Hong Kong, swam for University of Michigan and was a 14 time NCAA All American champion. She took the silver earlier this week in the 200M Freestyle.

So, in summary, the Americans have with swimming (as with other sports), a well established feeder and participation system starting from very early childhood years to university age and, for a select few, a medal at the Games. A huge part of this is that we have a large population. If you are picking the top two swimmers out of 300 million people you are more likely to have exceptional swimmers than if you are picking the top two swimmers out of 3 million people.

Perhaps 1 in 1 million people are born with the genetics to be an olympic gold medalist level swimmer. Country A has a population of 300 Million, they likely have about 300 of these people at any given time, say that 1 in 100 are the right age (old enough to be eligible not old enough to be retired) and actually swim competitively, they have three people to choose from to fill their two slots. Country B has 3 million people, so they have 3 potential swimmers alive at any give time, but only a 3% chance if we stick with 1-in-100 that even one of them is capable of competing this year!

The other significant factor is that the USA is a rich country with leisure time to invest in hobbies and sports. We are also a meritocracy so that even kids from non-ideal backgrounds often have opportunities to advance via sports (i.e. college scholarships) so more of those 1-in-a-million kids ends up on a swim team and at the olympic tryouts.

Recall that the US is 3rd in total population and 10th in GDP per capita in the world. USA has the large population and expendable income necessary to have some of the most competitive sporting teams and individuals in the world.

Neighborhood and recreational pools are part of most American families' lives. This means that their children usually start swimming as early as infant stage. Americans adore swimming and ocean and there is no doubt that swimming is once of their specialty when it comes to international sport. Then of course, there is huge budget for athletes, gigantic training stadium, great coaches and a sense of patriotism that serves are driving force for each swimmers to push and make name for themselves and their country.

No doubt America's produced the finest swimmers in the world whether it's Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz, Matt Biondi or Ryan Lochte, Jenny Thompson, Katie Ledecky and many more...

Stadiums, Pools, Gyms's are the visible factors.Despite of these there are numerous factors that work behind making an adroit & dextrous swimmer... May be it is Social, Educational, Political, Economical and other...

A dedicated coach and a dedicated athlete is not sufficient... It's only when the latter is free from any socio-economic tension. The perks, allowance, health & medical care, children's education is taken care off by the state. It's a scientific fact that colder climactic conditions are better fr the sports personal. Even the encouragement by parent's, school's play a crucial role.

Therefore we conclude that the external factors have a bigger hand in a athlete's journey to success.