A friend of the family was a Pan American Games champion in gymnastics in the 1970s but couldn’t accrue enough points to be eligible for the Olympics.
He got there in 2006. In the luge.
Back in the innocent days in the 70s, my high school actually had a shooting team sponsored by the junior ROTC and we had a ski team as well.
I was on the archery team and won state in my division. That feat was made easier by the fact that my high school was the only high school with an archery team at the time. We didn’t have any team competitions, only individual events.
Our electronics shop teacher loved archery and did all the work to make a team, obtain a place for the range, etc. Kids from other schools were mostly self taught or had a parent who liked archery.
However, finishing first in Utah was nothing like winning a state championship in a state like California. Those kids would have been good enough to get funneled into the system that grooms competitors for the Olympics.
Last year, one of my ESL students finished second in a ski competition in the all Japan junior high competition, and undoubtedly could have had a shot at getting into the path to the Olympics, but her passion is surfing so they made arrangements for her to live in the Gold Coast.
A friend of mine swam in the Olympics. Though a sport with mass participation where ability can be compared by times makes finding athletes relatively easy.
She swam for her club initially in age group events then in the seniors. Times and performaces qualified her for the UK championships. The Olympics set a qualification time and while other pathways to qualification are possible in general you need to beat the time to qualify, there is also a maximum of two participents per event from each nation so if more than two people from a nation meet the time the National Olympic Committee decide who goes.
My friend was the only British swimmer to achieve the time in her main event (200m breaststroke) for the 2004 and 2008 olympics, she also qualified for the 100m in 2008, Britain had two swimmers in that event and I am not sure if anyone else met the qualification time (meaning the NOC would need to select who could compete)
One consideration of the selection process is who can participate in the most events. The committee may need to make selections based on which athletes are competitive in many events rather than just one. That’s often a factor in swimming. The committee may choose someone who’s competitive in several strokes rather than just one.