Just some counterpoints
"Please show me any country which dominates senior world championships/ olympics in a sport who does not do well at the junior level in that sport"
I have not done any analysis but my first guess here would be USA. Does MUCH better in senior events than junior events, just from what it seems to me. Of course, this doesn't mean they have no junior champs. But in terms of volume and frequency of achievements, especially when compared with other sporting powers, USA wud be found lagging in juniors. I think one of the reasons for that is their inter-collegiate program is excellent. So many stars are discovered only in college, as opposed to in high school. Another prominent example would be Australia. I wud even venture a guess that many European countries, led by UK, wud also follow that template - senior performance better than junior is terms of volume and frequency.
"so every junior player may not become a good senior player but almost every great senior player was a great junior player"
Not exactly. I'd say every great senior player was at least a "good" junior player. And when u change that distinction, the pool becomes much wider and u dont really know who wud go on to become big.
One of the examples I have heard is of Roger Federer. In the juniors, Federer was doubles partner to a guy named Oliver Rochus. Between the two, Rochus was generally considered the far more talented and many people, including Federer's own coach, used to laugh at Federer when he dreamt of becoming the best in the world. Well, we all know how that played out...
Another example is our own Srikanth. OGQ had picked Praneeth over him to support when they were young, but they were proved wrong. Viren has even sort of said that it was a mistake but there's no way to avoid it, as Praneeth was much better in the junior days.
For me, a far better metric would be when someone graduated to the seniors. Manu Bhaker for eg doesn't have too many junior achievements to show before already being big in seniors. She just waltzed into the senior team at the beginning of the year from nowhere. Hima Das was already India's senior best when she won the U20 world champs. And just abt a year before, she was trying to become a sprinter. A couple of years earlier, she wasn't even into athletics.
"shooting unfortunately the junior championships were not regularly conducted till recently "
Well that is just not true. They have been conducted since 1994. We won our first junior gold through Navanath Faratade in 2006. Based on a recent interview of him, by around 2008, he was nowhere near national reckoning and essentially quit professional shooting soon after that (though he goes to the annual nationals till today).
"so from the crop of great junior players over a 5-6 competitions you would get 1 great senior level player especially in sports like wrestling or boxing"
Yes that is probably the more likely conversion rate. Unfortunately doesn't add up to "I believe in statistics if we have 20-24 medals today 5-6 years from today we will have at least 12-15 medals at the senior olympics".
To provide an extreme analogy, I was recently thinking that winning a junior world title is may be like topping ur 10th standard board exams. It is an absolutely magnificent achievement, but a new guy/girl does it every year. And while many (though definitely not all) of them will have successful fruitful careers, extremely few of those toppers will go on to become the CEO of a large MNC (which is what an olympic medal is).
Can we still hit double digits in 2024 ?? Absolutely. But we may even end up like Rio. Its just too far away to pass judgement. Either way, I wud much rather look to senior results for indicators than junior results.
And if we are lucky and these next two years go really well, and with Tokyo being very hot during August, I am hoping for at least 6-8 medals in Tokyo itself. Lot will depend on shooting though.