Boulevard of Old People
It is becoming exceeding normal for sportspeople to play till they are 40, what about the young guns?
When I was growing up, a 30-year-old athlete was considered finished.
Kapil Dev was 35 when he retired (And it was thought that he dragged it out too long chasing Richard Hadlee’s world record) ;
Steffi Graf was 30 when she retired;
Diego Maradona was 34 when he retired;
Boris Becker was 32 when he retired.
To excel in sport you start early and your body accumulates the stresses over the years and starts breaking. Hence after 30 years of high strain use, it is time to give it a break.
The current crop of athletes do not believe that. They tend to be paid a lot more, giving them more incentive to keep going. Further, the degree of medical support available to them, makes it possible for them to treat wear and tear. This prolongs their athletic lifespan.
Boris Becker won a little over $25 million in Prize money, Nadal has won over $134 million in prize money and there are no parallels between the endorsement opportunities available to sportspeople today as compared to the 90s.
Hence you have Cristiano Ronaldo at 39;
Fernando Alonso at 42;
Rohit Sharma at 37;
Rafael Nadal at 37;
all unwilling to retire.
Serena Williams retired aged 41.
The consequence is that Gen Z is unable to make a break in many of these sports where the number of openings available is limited,
Formula 1 has only 20 seats. The Indian cricket team has only 11 players. There are only 11 players on the Portuguese Football team. While Tennis might seem a lot more democratic, only 128 players enter Wimbledon each year.
With their careers spanning 20 years or more at times, they have quite possibly made it impossible for a generation to break into sports.