In the game of snooker young players dominate the ranking and money.
It wasn’t always like this. Rewind 10-15 years and you can see most of the top ranking players were much older…. 40+.
In a recent BBC documentary John Parrot (ex champion) was trying to find out why the old players are not dominating snooker anymore.
The documentary started by looking at fitness levels. It only made a marginal difference.
But the eye sight was an important factor. At the top level, snooker demanded very high level of hand-eye coordination and the older players were at a disadvantage.
Likewise the younger players were at a disadvantage when it came to experience. The older players were better at handling pressure.
This went on for a while and it was apparent most of the obvious advantages and disadvantages balanced themselves out.
Then the focus shifted to player’s psychology.
To be precise, their burning desire to win.
At this point I thought this is were the young guns have a massive advantage over the older players.
But I was wrong.
The documentary found young and old players had the same level of burning desire to win.
So what factor gives the younger player the edge?
The younger players not only had the burning desire to win, but also had the burning desire to put the level of work in to become a champion.
The older players although had the same desire for the outcome (i.e. become champions) but did not have the motivation to commit to put in the tremendous work to go with it.
Burning desire to achieve greater goals and the willingness to do what ever it takes is what makes champions.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ”Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”” – Muhammad Ali
+ Ravi Peal-Shankar
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