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Joe Biden's diaper, knuckerball pitcher, field goal kicker
Precious Roy wrote:
Sailing. I knew a guy who had a chance to be on the US Olympic sailing team after college. He admitted to me that all you needed to become a world class sailboat racer is location, time and money. Anyone can learn how to tack efficiently, manage your points of sail and the wind, fly a spinnaker, etc. You just have to have enough money to be in a yacht club and travel to competitions, live near the coast where you can sail and compete and hang around long enough to get your ranking up.
He was selling himself short a bit. Yes, the talent pool is small, so the odds of making it to the highest level are better than many Olympic sports. However, even in sailing, the people who are the best showed promise from the start, because there is a certain innate talent involved.
They all take talent. Even something like chess, which doesn't require physical talent, but rather mental talent (and thousands of hours of practice).
Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
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.
All due respect to steeplechasers.....then kind of like the steeplechase ???
talenty wrote:
Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
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.
All due respect to steeplechasers.....then kind of like the steeplechase ???
*Prefaces statement with “all due respect”*
*Immediately disrespects steeplechasers*
Classic letsrun.
Precious Roy wrote:
Birkoboy wrote:
Notice you didn't deny they need no talent,and no those fat heifers are not faster than me.
I used to look down on lineman in football. In HS, the lineman were just fat kids who were willing to smash into each other a few dozen times a day. But I met an NFL strength coach and he showed me videos of lineman lifting and doing training. NFL lineman are almost all 300+ lbs. They are expected to be able to bench 225 lbs 20-30 reps and can run a 40 in 5 sec (it's not pretty, but it is fast for 300+ lbs). But there are tons of football players who come out of college who are 300+ lbs and have good strength + speed. In order to be an NFL lineman, you also have to have excellent reaction time (almost on par with a sprinter), incredible balance and agility to be able to stay on your feet while being pummeled by a similarly situated 300+ pound lineman and believe or not you have to be pretty intelligent to be able to keep up with an NFL playbook. If you don't execute, you could easily end up letting your QB get sacked or have the running back blow through for a TD depending on what side of the line you play. And if you aren't convinced, watch a game with a cellar dwelling team like J-ville and compare to a top team like the Packers or the Bucs. What you are consistently seeing with the top teams is top talent in lineman and on the other end the quality of the linemen is dismal.
And this is obviously the "advantage" that widely played sports have in determining relative talent. Biomechanical metrics aside, one simply knows that there are thousands upon thousands of biggish kids playing lineman in HS football. Very low 3 figures make it to the NFL.
I agree with the one poster that the ONE exception to this may be 7 footer basketball players (at least in college....and maybe even some in the NBA?). Once played incredibly half-assed pickup basketball IN GYM CLASS with a tall, uncoordinated kid who couldn't come close to dominating even in THAT setting. A number of years later I was dumbfounded to find out that he was playing for a very good Div I college team.
And yes, I can imagine that he developed physically after I knew him, but...I think it still undeniable that he had but a small fraction of the athletic ability of the average shmoe HS point guard. And yes, I know that there are also a bunch of exceptions to the 7-foot thing - Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, etc.
my two pennies wrote:
talenty wrote:
All due respect to steeplechasers.....then kind of like the steeplechase ???
*Prefaces statement with “all due respect”*
*Immediately disrespects steeplechasers*
Classic letsrun.
No, it's not. It's a joke. And not a terribly nasty one, and certainly one with more than a kernel of truth to it.
And the "all due respect" is sincere. I'm slow, and would have killed to be fast enough to be successful in that event.
But that doesn't change the fact that a large number of steeplechasers are folks not quite fast enough to concentrate on the flats. Honest ones at all levels would admit that. Would Emma Coburn (or Henry Marsh, or....) be getting in the biggest meets in the 5K? Or if they did, be in the lead pack? First question: Maybe. Second question: No.
Let's not trade DB posting for hypersensitivity.
pikle rik wrote:
In my humble opinion, bodybuilding is a bit of a joke up to a certain point (that point being when roids come into play). Runners make excellent aesthetic bodybuilders-- they are used to routine and emphasis; they have low body fat; they understand recovery; they have an intuitive understanding of their body.
Take almost any d1 runner, subtract the running, put them in a weight room 2x a day, and they'll throw on 20 lbs of muscle in no time at all.
The bodybuilders I know believe they are special, but of course the truth of the matter is they simply happened to pick up lifting at a young age.
Bro, are you insane? Have you seen the terminator or the mountain?
Weight lifting is probably the most genetic-driven sport there is.
On topic wrote:
talenty wrote:
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.
You don't need to be a WR holder to be considered world-class. In ultrarunning, the top 10 or so guys in the world are really good, but the depth drops off dramatically after that. Given enough time, dedication, and money (so you won't need to hold a regular job), it's completely possible to be the 30th best ultrarunner in the world, which I'd still consider to be world-class.
hard worker with zero talent wrote:
Given enough time, dedication, and money (so you won't need to hold a regular job), it's completely possible to be the 30th best ultrarunner in the world, which I'd still consider to be world-class.
If you have the talent for it, sure. Someone with a bit less talent might make the top 50, someone else with a bit less talent again could make the top 100, and so on.
EKJ wrote:
hard worker with zero talent wrote:
Given enough time, dedication, and money (so you won't need to hold a regular job), it's completely possible to be the 30th best ultrarunner in the world, which I'd still consider to be world-class.
If you have the talent for it, sure. Someone with a bit less talent might make the top 50, someone else with a bit less talent again could make the top 100, and so on.
Give me $10 million and a random enthusiastic able-bodied 18 year old guy, and I'm sure I can turn him into a top 30 ultrarunner within 15-20 years. He almost certainly won't be breaking any WRs and might not even win any major races, but you don't need any talent to make the top 30 in the world.
hard worker with zero talent wrote:
you don't need any talent to make the top 30 in the world.
Hard work can get you so far within the range that your talent allows, but if you don't have "any talent" then forget being world class. If you can get a guy to be one of the best in the world, then he's obviously reasonably talented.
mid D guy wrote:
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.
Wth? I'm an average Joe and get within 25 minutes of an elite marathoner. And this is starting in my mid 20s. If I started at 6 years old and trained every day I'd probably be within 5 minutes of an elite. Doesn't take much to be close to an elite marathoner.
axe throwing, skateboarding
No but to your point there are some sports that are fairly well known that are probably the easiest. Think: rich people, super exclusive sports like bobsled, skeleton, luge, ski jumping, etc. Who in the world has the resources and/or facilities to have even the slightest opportunity to be good at one of those?? I believe there’s only 2-3 functional tracks in the entire US and you don’t just stroll up and pay $29.99/mo to join. So out of the 12 skeleton athletes in the US, 3 are Olympians. Don’t get me started on doubles luge…
hard worker with zero talent wrote:
EKJ wrote:
If you have the talent for it, sure. Someone with a bit less talent might make the top 50, someone else with a bit less talent again could make the top 100, and so on.
Give me $10 million and a random enthusiastic able-bodied 18 year old guy, and I'm sure I can turn him into a top 30 ultrarunner within 15-20 years. He almost certainly won't be breaking any WRs and might not even win any major races, but you don't need any talent to make the top 30 in the world.
We give you david45, and the $10M isn’t needed because he really, really wants to be fast.
I'm an old guy with old data. Anders Garderud was a world class runner in several events and the 1976 Oly Champ in the steeple. Doug Brown was a sub 28 10k man in the seventies. And of course, let's not forget the 1972 Oly Steeple champ...Kip Keino. Also Daniel Lincoln...world class runner.
Sure there may be steeplers that attain their best results in only that event, but most of them are great runners.
mounty wrote:
No but to your point there are some sports that are fairly well known that are probably the easiest. Think: rich people, super exclusive sports like bobsled, skeleton, luge, ski jumping, etc. Who in the world has the resources and/or facilities to have even the slightest opportunity to be good at one of those?? I believe there’s only 2-3 functional tracks in the entire US and you don’t just stroll up and pay $29.99/mo to join. So out of the 12 skeleton athletes in the US, 3 are Olympians. Don’t get me started on doubles luge…
In some parts of the world, ski jumping is not exclusive at all. There are many small (30-70m) jumping hills in Hokkaido, and many kids start jumping at age 11-12. The ones who are good will continue jumping in HS and after.
horse hunter wrote:
Wth? I'm an average Joe and get within 25 minutes of an elite marathoner. And this is starting in my mid 20s. If I started at 6 years old and trained every day I'd probably be within 5 minutes of an elite. Doesn't take much to be close to an elite marathoner.
Basically you are saying that any average American can run an OTQ if only trained seriously from a young age. Yeah, sure...