I would have guessed that as well, but in my admittedly small sample size amoung acquaintances it’s been surprisingly successful. Especially for the less common sports. Granted, one or two kids who hung their hopes on the sports push were unexpectedly derailed by things that wouldn’t have impacted them in the same way had they chosen nonathletic ECs (an example are the swimmers who had been planning their training peak carefully around a certain few meets and then a hurricane meant those meets were canceled so they had to use older, less optimal official times), but for the most part the athlete plan worked very well and seemed much less tied to any superstar internal motivation and much more tied to the size of the kid (a 6’4" boy or 5’10" girl has a pretty good natural advantage in rowing for example) and resources/pushiness of the parents.