Junior vs Senior World Champions videos

[TallyT]

The discussion on the Junior Women's thread reminded me of videos I had seen a few years back, of all the Junior World Champions (singles) to 2020 and their subsequent careers (to that date, so Shoma's WCis not there). I dug them out of youtube, watching them is a marked corrective to the impetus to call every brilliant JWC turn a surefire senior or Olympic champion (for the men, only 16% made WC and only 11% OGM, and for the women 26% made WC and only 9% OGM) and is a reminder how punishing a longterm career in this sport can be.

I thought maybe some other folk would be interested.

 

[el henry]

Good points, particularly for the men, it is very rare.

I know without re-watching (I have seen it before, with the "traveling" medal, very cute) that one of these JWC is Josh Farris, a lovely skater never able to reach his potential in seniors. And Adam Rippon was JWC twice.

It is never a sure thing to replicate Junior success, and being unable to do so is not a "failing", it is just the way of sport.

 

[4everchan]

Three things to consider as to why the percentages are so low.

1)Skaters seizing their opportunities in seniors without having won junior worlds. It does happen that skaters are still eligible for junior worlds but as they are in a nation where they are dominant, they opt to skip junior worlds and focus on senior worlds... For instance, Patrick Chan was winning world medals as a teenager. At 16, he won a silver at JWC in 2007. He moved up. The following year, he won the French GP, was third at SKAM and 5th at GPF. His first world medal came in 2009 at 18 and in 2010 at 19. Of course, there is no guarantee that he would have won worlds as a junior if he had decided to compete at the events in the years after his silver at worlds and for which he was still eligible and already winning medals at senior championships. So that's one factor.

2) Late bloomers. Javier Fernandez, Kaetlyn Osmond. The first finished 13th at Junior worlds. He ended up winning senior worlds twice much later in his career. Osmond finished 10th at junior worlds. It took her 5 years after that to win silver at senior worlds, then gold at senior worlds the following year. Yes, she was injured... but she started doing better as a senior when she secured the harder triples which were not mastered earlier on.

3) Simple math. Most junior champions will move up and not compete ever again in juniors. This means that every year at senior worlds, there are a bunch of former junior champions competing for the one title of senior champion... and of course, a senior champion has nowhere else to move up... so the field gets saturated with talent, and of course, many champions repeat their achievements... so there is even less possibility for former junior world champions to shine... (and of course, Olympics are once every 4 years)

Of course, it is true that junior success doesn't translate necessarily to success as a senior... Andrei Rogozine, Nam Nguyen are two good examples of that but I thought it was also important to bring these factors up... I admit I was too lazy to watch the videos... so maybe these are explained in there... but if that's the case, well the arguments will be also in the thread... so I think it's not a bad thing to write them out for people to read.

 

[TallyT]

I admit I was lazy to watch the videos... so maybe these are explained in there...

Sorry no, the videos are just the bald facts, each JWC and what they achieved (both medals and places) in each of the senior levels. I agree with a lot of what you say, I just thoughts the details of these promising kids' subsequent careers (many of whom I hadn't heard of) was interesting and also a gentle warning against nailing one's colours to the Next Sure And Certain Superstar.

 

[4everchan]

Watched it now... It is actually fun to watch thank you for sharing

a couple other remarks :
In earlier years, skaters retired earlier not necessarily for the same reasons as we see now with the recent champions.
a) there was almost no funding available so often, skaters would retire as soon as high school was over to go to college/university or coach
b) those who were successful retired early from amateur skating when the pro circuit was a big deal...