Hi There
I too have young kids that are sports people (competitive swimmers). It is even worse in our country (South Africa) as we have far less than that available for sports stars, and depending on your demographics you need to fund all the money yourself (my cousin was a to 30 ATP tennis player and our country's No 1 and had to pay all coaching etc herself). Also many of our athletes get poached at a very young age, and thus our teams and national bodies battle against the lure of stronger currencies.
my kids are competitive swimmers and runners. It truly is sad that there is such a mis representation of the level of athletes going to the Olympics. If you have money then you get to develop and attend the higher ranked events such as the Olympics. We need to collectively change how sports is funded and level that playing field for all to compete. Thanks for the post.