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told by his then coach that he didn't have nor the height or the wingspan to "make it"
Coaches can't see genetics and preconceived notions of physical traits required to win are what hampers some coaches. Compare Anna Meares with UK's Victoria Pendleton. If you put Pendleton in front of a sprint coach in the 90s they'd have fucking laughed her out of the building. Turns out you can be really successful without being able to deadlift a bus.
hippy-
In addition to the freakish genetics, Pendleton has perhaps the most obvious focus and determination of anyone I’ve ever met. (CSB inbound) I met her at a motorbike/extreme sports festival a few years back and my other half volunteered me to teach her how to drop in to a miniramp on a skateboard. It’s a pretty daunting step on a skateboard and usually takes people quite a while and a bit of practice to build up to and pluck up the courage. She was straight in there, jumping up immediately after every fall and running back to the top until she got it (ridiculously quickly). Have been around plenty of people learning to skate and never seen anyone like it
Edit to get to the point; Genetics + Psychology + Training. Really I just wanted to post the CSB
LukeG
A 23 years old can understand his limitation quite well (hopefully). But what if you say that to a 10/12 years old? I think that you would fuck him up for life
How well versed are you with rowing?
A kiwi named Hamish Bond (even tried to transition to cycling) as a junior/u19 had mediocre physiological parameters. Flash forward 10/12 years and between 2009 and 2016 never lost a race (bagged two olympic golds in the process), solely by outworking everyone else.
Still regarding rowing, I remember reading somewhere of an italian who as a 15 y.o. was told by his then coach that he didn't have nor the height or the wingspan to "make it"
To this day he has a couple of world championships wins and two olympic bronze (iirc)