This is what i’ve always wondered. When people talk about being able to make it to the high-level comps they talk about starting very young. I always wondering let’s say someone is a later starter like not 3 or 4 but 9 or 10, and can follow these rigorous training scenarios, who’s to say they can’t get triples and qualify?
It's not impossible, for the most gifted and most committed among the later starters. It's just that much less likely.
I can’t imagine an 11 year who can train uninterrupted not be able to catch up with the relatively low percentage of skaters who started very young and continued with the sport.
Someone who starts at 11 and trains many hours per week with all advantages should after a few years be able to catch up to skaters her own age who started at 5 or 6 and trained a few hours a week for most of that time, or with interruptions. They should all be able to do at least some double jumps.
But catching up to the most talented skaters of the same age who started early and continued training hard with all the advantages and are already landing triples at 11 while the 11-year-old starter is still learning single jumps is much less likely. They have a 5 or 6 year head start. Some of them might stall out as teenagers for various reasons, but if they have all the advantages of the late starter plus the advantage of starting early, many of those who stay in will probably remain ahead of the late starter.
Or am i just naive and want everyone to reach success lol.
It depends how you define success. Most of those skaters, even the ones who started early with every possible advantage, will never get to the Olympics. No more than 3 skaters per country per discipline can have that achievement once in four years.
Ever getting to compete internationally at some level? More likely than Olympics or Worlds. Ever getting to compete at Nationals? Very likely in small countries, more likely than internationally in larger countries with deeper fields. (And more likely for boys than for girls.) Ever getting past the first round of qualifiers (e.g., regionals, or qualifying rounds at regionals, in the US)? Possible. Getting to regionals or comparable official qualifying competitions? Definitely possible, though those who start near or after age 13 will miss the chance to compete as juveniles in the US and may be racing against time to qualify as intermediates before age 18, depending how late they started. Shining in lower level competitions or in disciplines other than singles/pairs/ice dance? Very very possible.
All of the above could be considered "success" for someone who sets realistic goals and then achieves and surpasses those goals. If a skater reaches the first goals easily and exceeds her own expectations, then it's time to set higher goals, which might but probably won't lead all the way to the Olympics. But starting with the highest possible goal as the only definition of success is pretty much a guaranteed path to failure.