Science would say that everybody’s memory of how great they were functioning on little sleep as 20 year old gods was a joke:The "lack of sleep" thing is and old wives tale when you are talking about 20 year olds.
If you like what you are doing the next day, the sleep part doesn't matter. We used to go out, drink all night, try to nail some beaver, come home, eat some fast food and get to bed around 1am...then get up a 5:45 for a 7am tee time and be drinking again on the ride to the course
Sleep and Athletic Performance: A Multidimensional Review of Physiological and Molecular Mechanisms - PMC
Sleep is a fundamental biological process in athletes, indispensable for tissue regeneration, exercise adaptation, and injury prevention. Disruptions in sleep architecture and duration have been consistently associated with diminished physical ...
Excerpt:
Insufficient sleep leads to declines in strength, power, endurance, and cognitive function and is also linked to higher rates of injury in young athletes. Additionally, inadequate sleep negatively affects mental health and regenerative capacity [5].