[Closed] Where do all the junior/U23's go ?

Strava?

I would have thought elite bike racing suffers from two problems:

- The earning potential decreases drastically from the pointy end of the field, especially in more niche disciplines.
- The direct monetary cost and opportunity of competing is very high - expensive kit, extensive travel, medical bills, missing out on training / career building.

Things like say Football, Golf or Tennis have greater earning potential for a greater number of people and less cost. A local golf or tennis pro can make a decent living despite being no where near the sharp end of anything, ever. Not so much the case in cycle sports.

Being a pro cyclist is a bloody tough way to earn a living, you live like a monk and have to regularly thrash yourself into the ground if you want to stand any chance and even then for the vast majority earnings are pretty meagre.

I guess they hit a certain age, realise that the're not actually the next Chris Froome or Greg Minaar, have to stop living off the bank of mum and dad and realise that they can live much more comfortably doing almost anything else.

Still a good formative experience for most I'd reckon.

I remember the Secret Olympian book saying that across all sports a great many of them at the Olympics weren’t the best in school and junior ranks, but the ones who were good enough and stuck at it longest.

Lots of great junior level people just find other interests, or prioritise education and careers outside of professional sport instead. The stars really have to align to keep a promising junior focused on training and racing as all their friends diverge and get on with their lives. If you’re not well supported (by family, sponsors, team, national stuff) then it gets harder still.

Also they may well be fed up of it by 23 after doing it for 15 odd years and in a lot of cases being pushed to hard by there parents you see it a lot in schoolboy motocross and in that case its where the father really wanted to do it as a kid but never got the chance lots of reasons as said above.

Things like say Football, Golf or Tennis have greater earning potential for a greater number of people and less cost. A local golf or tennis pro can make a decent living despite being no where near the sharp end of anything, ever. Not so much the case in cycle sports.

Possibly also an element of exposure? They're possibly still there, just not racing anymore. A few of them probably still work in the bike industry in the same way the local tennis/golf pro. they're coaching or running bike (or golf, or tennis) shops. Or went to university to do a degree in physiotherapy and now do that. Or marketing, business/management or engineering, and went to work for one of the big bike brands. Most industry interviews i the mag's seem to stat with the introduction "was a regular podium in u23........... before setting up..........."

U18 a hobby might be a big part of your life before other commitments like university, relationships, work and managing your own money come into play. U23 is still an amateur level, they're mostly not having to do it to pay the bills though, just a hobby they happen to be good at. People s hobbies change, or they just move down he priority list and you go from trying to race every weekend to evening rides and an annual lads trip to the alps.

Without being too harsh, a lot of them simply will not have been good enough in the professional ranks. I read an interesting article a couple of years ago about the same situation in tennis. Broadly, every year plenty of young players come through the youth ranks pretty much crushing all the age appropriate competition, but then suddenly find themselves on the pro tour struggling week in week out to even take a game off an established top 100 player.

I used to work with a guy whose BIL was a talented junior tennis player. He played and won vs Tim Henman a lot supposedly but his parents pushed education rather than sport, so he ended up a surgeon.