What is the easiest way to win an Olympic medal?

womens hockey. 50% chance if you are on the us or Canadian team.

handball...

ice sports are not athletics

Perhaps rowing might be an option... in the men's eights, there were only 8 teams at Beijing. For the women's eights, only 7 teams. So at the very least, you have a good chance of making the top 6 teams and being able to call yourself an Olympic finalist. Finish in the top half of that race and you get a medal.

swimming

eBay.com

Table tennis would be very, very difficult.

I watched the medal round of equestrian during the last olympics. That has to be the easiest. Several middle aged people won medals.

Because you just have to sit on top of a horse right?

randy marsh wrote:

I watched the medal round of equestrian during the last olympics. That has to be the easiest. Several middle aged people won medals.

toro wrote:

You figure the triathlon is easier than anything in Track and Field because the competition is just not as deep.

Equestrian has to have limited participation.

There's mountain biking, archery, table tennis...

They got rid of croquet. Darn!

If I wanted to pursue a sport where I could avoid the best athletes and have a shot at being Olympic Champion, what sport should I choose?

table tennis? You'd have to get through 300 million Chinese.

If you have the dough, equestrian sounds good.

Curling

The easiest way to win an Olympic medal would be to be born with the genetic ability to run 9.5 in the 100m without training. You could just fly over, do less than a minute of actual work (including getting into the blocks and all), and win your medal.

just be talented wrote:

The easiest way to win an Olympic medal would be to be born with the genetic ability to run 9.5 in the 100m without training. You could just fly over, do less than a minute of actual work (including getting into the blocks and all), and win your medal.

Talent? Bolt had years of extensive training before running 9.5

TheShane wrote:

Talent? Bolt had years of extensive training before running 9.5

Irrelevant. I am simply saying that the easiest way to win a gold medal would be to be born with the ability to do so without training.

as a coxswain on a crew boat

Curling

Ice sports are not athletics.

Not Athletics wrote:

Curling

Ice sports are not athletics.

He didn't say anything about athletics. He asked what the easiest way to get a medal is. Have you seen worse (ahem) "athletes" than curlers?

swonee wrote:

as a coxswain on a crew boat

Actually this is probably the best answer. If you are reasonably short and willing to stay skinny and read up on rowing, all you've gotta do is coxswain for the US team for a while and you've got a lock on a medal. Any of the "horse sports" are offensively easy too. Dressage? Come on. Rhythmic or artistic gymnastics if you are an attractive woman. I can't imagine too many people get big into the modern pentathlon either.

Curling for the winter olympics. Just move to bemidji for a few years and take it up.

Equestrian sports are one of the fundamental, warrior-type sports. How a man handles a horse, a spear, and a sword are the most basic sports ( along with hand to hand combat). Running isnathletic, but not exactly combative

An old college buddy used to think about this a lot, and he thought that modern pent was his best shot. He was learning skiing and how to shoot and everything to pursue this. He was a bit of a flake, and it never really got off the ground, but that was his analysis.

Of course, it's got to be something that plays to the abilities/parameters that you have. I'll never make it as a coxswain, for example.

There are plenty of people who make it to the olympics without being anything special. But getting a medal is another story.