The "formula" is very easy to articulate but harder to execute. You put in place a properly planned junior pathway, with the juniors being trained from the start to have the right mental attitude. You integrate them with the main Olympic squad as soon as is practical, so the juniors get exposure to how the whole olympic team system works. You instill an attitude that selection for the games is a small part of the journey (it is never a main goal) and you focus on one thing only - winning. If you focus on anything less, you will never reach your goals. Almost all olympic sports in the UK set a higher qualifying standard than required by the IOC. Support to go for younger athletes in order to "gain experience" is only given if that athlete has a long history of winning at every junior level and is at the top for their age group.



All of this is a pretty rigid system, but it works. What makes it hard to stay at the top is that other countries can see what you are doing and emulate your programs. This happened to the Australians, with their AIS system. It worked, but they sat back and didn't continue to improve it and didn't succession plan, so when some of their best coaches were poached, there was nobody to replace them with the right level of knowledge.