This summer time has seen some spectacular performances by younger athletes however bridging the hole from junior to senior success is among the trickiest duties within the sport
A few of the most eye-catching performances in current days have been achieved by younger athletes. From 16-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus’ 1:42.27 over 800m on the US Champs to 15-year-old Kelly Doualla’s sprinting excellence on the European Below-20 Championships in Tampere, teenage athletes are serving to gentle up the 2025 summer time observe season.
We’ll even see a few of these athletes on the World Championships in Tokyo in September. Lutkenhaus, for starters, has already booked his place in the US crew. After turning 19 in April, Innes FitzGerald is a bit older however she has solely been coaching severely for 3 or 4 years, gained a golden double in Tampere this month and is hoping her European under-20 5000m document of 14:39.56 set in London final month is sufficient to get into the GB crew for Tokyo.
As any skilled coach or long-term fan of athletics will know, although, teenage triumph don’t assure senior success in future. For each Usain Bolt there are numerous teenage ‘phenoms’, ‘skills’ and ‘prodigies’ who fall by the wayside throughout the notoriously tough transition into the senior ranks.
The primary European Below-20 Championships I lined for AW was the 1999 occasion in Riga. The golden lady of the championship was German sprinter Sina Schielke after successful the 100m, 200m and 4x100m titles throughout a red-hot few days within the Latvian capital.
Though she went on to run barely faster in 2001-2002, it’s truthful to say she didn’t attain the identical heights as a senior sprinter and as a substitute ended up on the quilt of Playboy journal in 2005.
At those self same championships in Riga, Yuriy Borzakovskiy gained the boys’s 800m forward of Nic Andrews of Britain. But demonstrating the fickle nature of athlete development, the Russian went on to win Olympic gold in 2004 whereas Andrews struggled to run any sooner than the 1:49.08 he achieved that summer time.
Maybe probably the most dramatic instance of all comes from the 2002 World Below-20 Championships in Jamaica. Racing on dwelling soil and only a month earlier than his sixteenth birthday, Usain Bolt sped to victory within the 200m. The ladies’s 200m winner at those self same championships, nonetheless, Vernicha James of Britain, solely competed for an extra two seasons earlier than packing up as a result of accidents and disillusionment.
Within the ladies’s 200m in Britain alone, in actual fact, the occasion is suffering from nice teenage runners who struggled to fulfil their potential. Amy Spencer was a prime teenage sprinter on the flip of the millennium and was named BBC Younger Sports activities Persona of the Yr in 2001, however by 2005 she had stop athletics. In the identical interval, Sarah Wilhelmy was as soon as billed as “the subsequent massive factor” but in addition stop quickly after transferring from the teenage to senior ranks.
In fact, some do make it. Dina Asher-Smith was a terrific teenage runner and went on to interrupt UK data at 100m and 200m. Jodie Williams, who loved an immensely profitable interval as a teenage sprinter, battled a number of accidents over a few years to finally end a high quality sixth within the Olympic 400m closing in 2021 and as well as gained Olympic relay bronze in Paris 2024.
What’s extra, it is good to see Amy Hunt, the UK under-20 record-holder within the ladies’s 200m, now efficiently negotiating the junior-to-senior transition. Hunt has discovered her strategy to “the opposite aspect” and he or she gained the UK 100m title in Birmingham this month.
A few of the most notable “teenage skills” who struggled to make their mark as seniors are etched in athletics historical past.
Linsey Macdonald was solely 16 when she gained the British 400m title in a nationwide document of 51.16 and went to the 1980 Moscow Olympics the place she reached the ultimate. However her athletics profession didn’t progress – though her age-group data definitely stood the check of time – and he or she grew to become a physician.
Ade Mafe reached the Olympic 200m closing aged 17 in Los Angeles in 1984 and went on to win European indoor gold and world indoor medals. However by the mid-Nineties he was pursuing a profitable profession as a health coach for soccer golf equipment comparable to Chelsea. Equally, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey gained a world junior 100m title in 2006 and, though not fairly reaching the identical heights as a senior, he gained a number of dash relay medals earlier than attaining fame as “Nitro” in Gladiators and now, aged 36, turning into a Strictly Come Dancing competitor in coming weeks.
Kirk Dumpleton famously beat Steve Ovett and Seb Coe in the identical race to win the 1972 English Colleges cross-country crown and he went on to run nicely for quite a lot of years, though clearly not on the identical degree as Ovett and Coe.
Feminine teenage middle-distance runners appear to draw the title of ‘teenage prodigy’ greater than most. Georgie Clarke, for instance, gained the 1999 world under-18 title at 800m and one 12 months later competed for Australia on the Sydney Olympics amid appreciable hype on the age of simply 16. Once more, her performances dried up as soon as she hit the senior ranks.
Equally, Mary Cain raced within the 2013 World Championships aged simply 17 after which gained the world under-20 title at 3000m in 2014 however her outcomes tailed off dramatically as she endured what she referred to as a “poisonous tradition” below the teaching of Alberto Salazar.
Again in Britain, Emily Pidgeon (above proper) was dubbed the “new Paula Radcliffe” and her many teenage triumphs included the European junior 5000m title, which got here only a few weeks after her sixteenth birthday and London’s Olympic bid victory in July 2005. As she moved into the senior ranks she continued to submit instances that the majority athletes would kill for, however she hung up her spikes in 2014 on the age of simply 24.
In 2016, the previous AW editor Mel Watman did his personal survey of younger athlete statistics, taking a look at what occurred to the 90 winners of English Colleges observe and area titles on the 2006 championships.
A decade later, when the athletes would have been aged between 24 and 29 years previous and on the peak of their careers, Watman discovered that simply 11 of the 42 winners of women’ occasions and eight of the 48 boys’ winners went on to achieve a senior worldwide vest.
In the meantime, in research performed at Liverpool John Moores College by the previous GB heptathlete and dash hurdler Dr Karla Drew as a part of a PhD, it was revealed that 63 per cent of those that competed for Britain on the World Junior championships in 1998-2012 didn’t obtain a PB as a senior and 67 per cent of that group didn’t acquire worldwide honours as a senior athlete.
Causes for athletes dropping out vary from accidents and sickness to examination pressures or different pursuits comparable to a profession, boy/girlfriend or perhaps a totally different sport. There are additionally extra nuanced causes, comparable to athletes who’re narrowly overwhelmed as youngsters retaining the starvation to coach, whereas as compared the children who “win all the pieces” can get complacent.
After protecting the junior athletics scene for AW for 1 / 4 of a century, listed below are a few of my conclusions…
For each nationwide senior champion or Olympian there are numerous “teenage skills” who drift away into mediocrity or stop utterly. Teenage drop-out charges are sadly savage.
If you’re a dad or mum or coach, don’t assume your gifted baby will make the highest. The chances aren’t in your favour, however this shouldn’t cease you giving them the absolute best assist and encouragement.
Right here’s the factor, you’ll battle to search out an Olympic gold medallist or world record-breaker who was not taking their athletics fairly severely of their mid to late teenage years.
Keep in mind, it’s higher to win nationwide or worldwide titles as a junior than to by no means win something in any respect. Most of the critics who level to younger athletes “not fulfilling their potential” have as a rule by no means gained something themselves. Being the most effective at your occasion on a specific day in opposition to athletes in your age group is certainly one thing to be applauded.
Win or lose, teenage athletics competitions present fond reminiscences that final a lifetime. Rivals in Tampere and elsewhere this summer time shouldn’t overlook this. They could by no means make an Olympic podium however they are going to nonetheless have achieved greater than most athletes can dream of.
