https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA8uDJhosXM
Cliff diving
Cliff diving
Ah, none of those. I think your best bet is extreme high diving. Just pick a world class height and go for it. It requires 0 talent to jump although you might have to acquire some skills on the way down. Might get extra style points for screaming.
Xmas tree wrote:
Rowing. I had no talent for football, baseball, or hockey - just enough athletic ability to not get cut for varsity teams in high school. Went to college and joined the crew team and the heavens opened up and the angels began singing. Holy crap I’m awesome at this! Best on the team. All you gotta be is the right body type: Tall. I love crew, but the fact that I was tearing it up tells ya something. Great sport, lifelong friendships, raging parties, awesome memories , but I hate to say there really is no talent needed. I mean you gotta be an athlete, but can’t really say you need talent for anything.
Will always respect a top rower, which obviously you have no clue what that is, over a football, baseball, or hockey player. Those are kids games played by insecure adults who constantly need to run around and look for approval.
A sport like rowing can be a true sport. In singles. Mano a mano. Power, grace, endurance, mental strength. Got it all.
You can never be the best in a team sport, only your team is best or not. This is why guys like Dressel & Tyson Fury get the recognition they deserve for being the best on the planet at what they do.
ArthurNotInMyYard wrote:
moorest wrote:
Agree--sports that take money and require obscure training equipment/facilities. Winter sports are prime candidates, with skeleton being the first event that comes to mind. Requires a bobsled course and an absurd willingness to take risks, but not much physical skill. I'm not too familiar with curling, but this also seems to fit this mold.
This is a glaringly ignorant and uninformed response. To do well, the start phase of skeleton requires near-world class sprint speed (as does bobsleigh, which is why top track & field athletes are recruited into the sport), and the strength and reflexes necessary to lay rigid in an aero position on a tiny sled rocketing down an icy track at 80mph, and steer it through a proper line, is far from something any schmo could achieve.
Put most people on a skeleton sled and they'd crumple into a screaming panic and crash before getting 50 meters down the hill.
While I can easily imagine that he's overstating, perhaps greatly, on those 2 sports, I think that the comment, "sports that take money and require obscure training equipment/facilities" is probably a REAL good start on answering the OP's question.
And as long as a sport has more than one participant, there will ALWAYS be some relativity. From bobsledding to race car driving, do I think that just anyone can do it at the current world class level? No, of course not. But if any of those sports had anywhere NEAR the talent pool of the big sports, would their current stars still be stars? Probably not. A 29-minute 10K white guy from Iowa looks like quite the athletic specimen....until you invite E. Africa to play.
Ice dancing. It is called "figure skating for people who cannot land triples." And most ice dancers are former singles skaters who switched events because they could not compete in singles.
Singles skaters (especially women) have to go through regionals and sectionals to get to the US national. Any ice dancer can directly go to the Nationals because there are so few competitors at the senior level. The talent level at the Nationals drops sharply after the top four or five teams. If you are untalented skater, but you still want to compete in the Nationals and be on national TV, switching to ice dancing is the rational decision.
go run fast and jump high wrote:
Gambling. Such as winning with lottery tickets or slot machines. It is 100% luck.
But is anyone considered "world class" at the types of gambling that are 100% luck? Someone could win several big lotteries and they still aren't world class. They are just lucky.
(Poker isn't 100% luck, so we would not count the obviously world class players in that game).
Anyone who responded with any specific sport has only made clear which sport they must not know much about or don't know what it takes to climb the ladder in that sport.
This sounds about right. But don’t overlook similar opportunities. If you throw the same kid on a motoring cycle he surely could become a world-class motocross / motorcycle racer, since intrinsic talent doesn’t matter. Or put the kid on a riding horse and he could become a world-class equestrian. The opportunities are limitless, since these sorts of sports allow you to build skills with experience and don’t rely at all on any innate cognitive, physical, physiological, psychological abilities.
mid D guy wrote:
I do not think there is really any, but perhaps Sailing is the sport that may come closest.
The pool of competitors is somewhat limited and a lot of the skills are built with experience. I you throw a kid on a sailing boat every day from age 6 there is a good chance he can become a world-class sailor regardless of intrinsic talent.
I think sailing is the correct answer.
4:59 wrote:
How about Cornhole--I'm talking about the game.
It is unlikely your coordination is good enough to make you world class however much you practice. We can all more or less do a putting stroke? But not matter how much we practice few of us will ever hit PGA levels of consistency. Cornhole, curling, horseshoes, bowling and the rest all fall into that group.
Run6556 wrote:
I think sailing is the correct answer.
Lol. Pretty sure you need a boatload of talent to sail at world class level. Based on my short sailing experiences, there's no way 80% of the population could get halfway decent at it for a long time.
I agree with the sailing replies. Seems like all you really need is just a whole lot of dedication and practice. If your rich growing up near the water and learn at a young age it probably just becomes second nature.
Disagree with Nascar and any type of motor racing. This isn't just some trip down the express way, you must have some insane reflexes to do that sport.
Saw one mention for rowing. I disagree, it's about in same area as running with regards to talent vs hard-work ratio to succeed. However, if your not over 6'2 your basically screwed. If you are the right size though, there is a better chance you succeed because the sport is not quite as popular as running and is mostly for rich kids.
I suppose that there are some activities, like playing Baccarat, where someone could be considered the best and still be modestly stupid. Even here, the "best" Baccarat player probably has a huge bankroll.
My hs was really great at crew. The team would find all the tall lanky freshmen and let them know that this was their ticket to Harvard.
Those kids were all pretty hoss by senior year but I knew from freshman gym class just how unathletic they all were.
Tall plus slow twitch makes a good rower
talenty wrote:
hard worker with zero talent wrote:
I'm thinking ultrarunning, horse racing, curling, and maybe NASCAR or poker. Though it would be debatable on whether ultrarunning is "commonly known".
Thoughts?
While I guess that I can understand why a runner relatively unfamiliar with those other sports/activities would list them, I can't understand listing ultras. If, as I presume, you acknowledge that running 26 miles or less relatively fast involves talent, I can't imagine why you'd wonder if running farther does?
And I don't know off the top of my head what the pace-per-mile is for say the 50 or 100 mile WR (although I'm sure it's mind-boggling to us average joes), but isn't the 24-hour one 7-something pace? How many folks do you think could train their ass off and run 7-something pace for a freakin' whole day? Yes, only the talented ones.
People are only saying that because this forum loves to sh*t on ultrarunning. Everyone knows you're right.
The 24 hour WR is 309km=192 miles, which works out to 4:39 per km or 7:29 per mile.
I have a question. How come there are kids in high school that run insanely fast during their 9th and 10th-grade year and then progress but not by much where I have been progressing continuously at a good rate? I started off with slower times.
Trust me; the top competitive sailors have great talent.
Your statement about what it takes to be a great sailor is
utterly shallow and uninformed…
Harrier1 wrote:
Trust me; the top competitive sailors have great talent.
Your statement about what it takes to be a great sailor is
utterly shallow and uninformed…
It takes some talent to be the best of the best, but I think Sailing is one of the sports where practice and experience can bring you pretty far.
No matter how hard he can train, the average Joe is not going to get within 30-45 minutes of an elite marathoner; but put the average Joe on a boat every day from age 6 and after 20 years there is a good chance that he will be able to sail with the best of the best and not embarrass himself.
IIRC there was an American woman, some years back, who was determined to get to the Olympics somehow and decided archery was her ticket. She didn't make the OG but I believe she became a national-level competitor.
Which just means she had talent, most likely. Archery at a high level is a tough sport.
Hmm. Found this. Not sure that it's the same woman, though.
https://www.si.com/olympics/2021/07/26/jennifer-mucino-aimed-olympics-archery
Show jumping
Spacediving