Reply to Why doesn’t USA Swimming use cut-off dates like every other youth sport?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was a D1 swimmer and this conversation is absurd. It will not matter AT ALL by the time it actually counts. All sports have age-related disadvantages and advantages. My daughter has a Jan 2nd bday and plays travel soccer. You could argue she has an advantage every year over kids who are born in December, since they use the calendar year to determine age cut-offs. [/quote]THIS.  [/quote]

Just bc it evens out when the kids are 15 (good birthdays) compared to 16 (bad birthdays) doesn’t mean it didn’t have an impact before that. [/quote]

But it doesn't "even out."  Hasn't everyone heard about Malcom Gladwell and relative age/ Matthew effect at this point?  Researchers have looked at this as applied to swimming and found that the theory holds for swimming too (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8535716/).  In other words, those with advantageous birthdays are seen as better when they are young, and they get more and better opportunities while they are young.  Those opportunities accumulate over time so they end up better when they are older.  That's why you see those with May birthdays widely overrepresented at meets like Sectionals, at which point you would expect things to "even out."    (https://swimswam.com/brett-leader-looks-relative-age-age-group-swimming/[/quote]

NP.
Interesting!

I am not sure which teams focus on championships  vs. regular meets.

My kid is equally focused on every meet. So while they are the youngest at January/February events ( early January birthday), they are the oldest in December meets and do well there. 😀 [/quote]

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