The whole Olympic roster for the US is ~500 people. There's half a million people who are current NCAA athletes, that's an order of magnitude off right there, even after excluding football and before counting in the actual pros.
Not really, just football and lacrosse. On the other hand, there're many Olympic events that are not a part of the NCAA.
>Also, because spots in the Olympics are limited, the "best" person isn't always chosen to represent a given country for a given sport.
I don't think this is particularly important on average. I'm just giving a quick and dirty lower bound here to put things into perspective.
...how? "This person did nothing wrong and still did not make it to the olympics". That's literally what we're debating?
If you scroll up you'll find this discussion is about luck vs. hard work. I'll be stepping out of this specific comment thread now though. Enjoy your night.