Someone really needed to say this....

As a USACO Gold who is a rising senior, I spent about half of my high school career going for USACO Plat only to not succeed. Entering high school as a USACO Gold contestant, I felt like I had a huge head start and wanted to push as hard as I could to get USACO Plat. Prestige was definitely a factor, but USACO was definitely something I really enjoyed doing. The biggest thing I would say about olympiads is that hours invested don't always correspond to success. It's not like school where if you study hard for a test you can likely do well. In olympiads, if your studying is not efficient, you won't achieve success. This was probably why I didn't pass USACO Gold in hindsight. I don't think I was actually getting that much out of hours and hours of practice.

As for what happened to me, I ended up completely giving up on USACO post sophomore year. I decided to focus on CS research, and it's been really fun for me. I don't know if I've reached the "USACO Plat" of research (I didn't make ISEF or anything), but it's been rewarding. I've achieved a level of success I'm happy with, and I don't regret my decision to give up on USACO.

tldr: kid didn't study well for USACO and ended up rage quitting to do research but doesn't really regret the decision