It's not been a good week for the U.S. boys and girls teams in Nanjing at the Youth Olympics. The boys lost all of their pool matches before finally beating Japan in the 5th/6th place game. The girls have done better with a win over Tunisia and a draw with Spain. That was enough to put them into fourth place and a spot in the semi-finals where they lost to Australia and will now play China in the bronze medal match. Anything can happen in a 14 minute match but on paper China look to be the much better team.
So should we be worried by the results? If the Youth Olympics are a mirror of the upcoming 2016 games or even the games in 2020 is there reason to panic that the U.S. slumped so badly? Yes and no. It's definitely worrying that the boys team played so poorly in their opening matches but if you look at the background of the team and compare rugby to other sports at the youth level it's not as worrisome as first appears.
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It's important to understand a few things about the Youth Olympics. Unlike the full on version the Youth Olympics aren't as open in terms of selection of athletes. Countries are only allowed to send so many athletes and they are also restricted in how many team sports they can enter. So while the U.S. choose to send boys and girls teams to the rugby event, powerhouses like Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and others elected not to send boys teams. Instead, you saw teams from emerging countries like Fiji and Tonga. On the girls side there were more powerhouse teams but also a number of emerging teams. Plus, it's the first year rugby has been in the games.
The fact that several of the strongest teams choose to focus on other sports doesn't exactly make the U.S. teams performance look that great. However, when you look at age-grade tournaments at other levels you see that a country's history doesn't indicate how well it will do at the full version of the tournament. The 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup saw Mexico and Nigeria contest the final. Neither of those teams have even come close to winning a World Cup. The point is that success at the age-grade level doesn't predict success at the full national team level. There can be several reasons why teams do well--time together, centralized training, or even level of physical maturity--and others don't do well.
Tournaments like the Youth Olympics are meant to gain experience, not as a barometer of the future. A player may have all the potential in the world but flame out as they get older (see Freddy Adu) while a player that flies under the radar may suddenly break out. If one or two players from the current boys and girls team eventually make it on to the full national team than the tournament should be considered a success. Again, it's the experience, not the results, that matters here. Winning is a perk but you can often learn just as much through losing as you do winning.
However, the fact that both the boys and girls teams haven't done well is problem. The problem doesn't lie in the quality of player but in the platform they were given to succeed. The lead-up time to the tournament was short and the coaching staff wasn't even picked until recently. Much of that lies with folks outside of U.S.A. Rugby who only invited the U.S. late. Still, the players only had a few days with their new coaching staffs before leaving. Some had familiarity with them from various camps and tournaments with the All-Americans, but it wasn't as comprehensive as needed if the team was going to succeed. It all speaks to the need to have more of our elite youth players playing together more frequently. If the U.S. elects to field rugby teams in the Youth Olympics again let's hope they give them a better platform.
Overall the results are very disappointing but the lessons gained are not. We want our national teams to succeed. However, calling this a disaster or suggesting that the whole system is broken based on one tournament is rash. If it continually happens then there is question for concern but it's far to early to make a solid judgement. Our guess is that several players come out from this tournament and go on to have better careers because of the experience. From that angle this is nothing but a positive.