The Winter Olympics are full of entitlement and leisure class athletes

[Wiz Imp]

34. You didn't read the article. At the time of the article, it mentions median household income was around $50,000

Not $75,000. This also refers to the income level where people can afford to participate in these sports. The income levels for those who can achieve Olympic level would be significantly higher. As it was, the income level for Alpine skiing was at least in the top 5% of all households - just to participate not be Olympic level.

Instead of focusing on the "silver spoon" comment, try addressing the point the OP was making which was that it takes a ton of money to be able to reach olympic level in most winter sports, which automatically means that the vast majority come fom family backgrounds with significant money that they can afford to spend the tens of thousand of dollars per year required to reach the olympics.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/the-cost-of-raising-an-olympic-winter-athlete/2022061/
It Can Take a Mountain of Money to Raise a Winter Olympian
Raising a brother and sister to be world junior champion ice dancers has cost the family more than $500,000 on their journey — so far

"When they were starting out, it was just a thousand or two a year early on. Then it started ramping up steadily as they started competing nationally and then internationally," Richard Parsons said, noting the annual expenses increased from an average of $40,000 a year to $75,000 last year.

And the Maryland family is not an outlier in how much it spends — eye-popping expenses are par for the course for most Olympians. Parsons said some teams in their sport spend more than $100,000 a year to train at the elite level.

Mike Trapp, the 2011 and 2012 U.S. snowboarding champion, said an average season training costs about $35,000 in equipment, coaching and traveling expenses. It's more expensive in a year leading up to the Olympics.

Sorry, but those types of expenses can not be afforded by average middle class families.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-winter-olympics-are-amazing-but-also-a-shining-beacon-of-sports-privilege
The Winter Olympics are amazing, but also a shining beacon of sports privilege

So let's come back to luge. In order to be good at luge, you have to train at special facilities, which costs money—Mazdzer went to the National Sports Academy for high school in Lake Placid, a private school where I assume luge was his primary focus. Almost every obscure winter sport athlete from America either comes from reasonable wealth or found a benefactor. (Mazdzer's dad is a neurologist, while his teammate Tucker West's father is a wealthy entrepreneur who built him his own track at home.) It's limited by geography, because you're not going to take up luge in a hotter climate. And it's limited by popularity, because what kid would want to take up luge?

If you want to know why Germany is so good at the sport, read this piece—it's because they have a ton of luge clubs, invest more money than any other country, have more tracks, and start their athletes young. In other words, they manage on a national level to mitigate the limits of two factors, money and desirability. (If you've noticed that Norway seems to dominate cross country events, while the Netherlands is virtually unbeatable in long track speed skating and South Korea can't lose in short track, the answer is the same on an institutional level: They care more.)

Here's some trivia: How many luge tracks are there in America? Answer: There are two. TWO TRACKS! One in Lake Placid, and one in Park City, UT. There are four continents on this planet, including South America and Africa, that have zero! For training and competitive purposes, there are only 16 in the whole world. Similarly, Lake Placid has one of just six ski jumping facilities in the country...of course some of our Olympians have come from my hometown. It's the same with the Norwich athletes profiled in the Times, almost all of whom compete in specific winter sports available only to more affluent cold-climate athletes.

In Usain Bolt's heyday, I believe that you could search the planet for months and not find a single human being who could run faster over 100 meters. But if everyone had the same chance at luge? Odds are, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands of better lugers hiding in places where they'll never touch a sled. I hate to break out the p-word, since it's so badly overused, but so many winter Olympics sports are sports of privilege—rich people picking out obscure events they can excel at. The games are a wonderful spectacle, but look too closely, and the foundation of excellence starts to look pretty wobbly.