| Population certainly doesn't hurt your cause, but there's more too it. As many mentioned, facilities for training, coaching, parents with an income and the time to to take you to practice, pay swim club fees, time to spend wknds at swim meets etc. Countries like China, the old Eastern Bloc countries made up for that by having national sporting systems, etc.
And if I'm not mistaken, going from memory, I'm too lazy to check...I think that the US used to send 3 athletes in each event and quite often took all 3 medals. More often than not, the US Olympic swimming trials are a deeper talent pool than the actual Olympics. |
Michael Phelps Gold Medals
6+ Olympic Golds
Olympic Figure Skaters
