Is there any commonly known sport, game, or activity you can become world-class in without having any talent?

Triathlon and ultra running take no talent.

18rabbitskiing wrote:

I think the OP maybe confusing talent for athleticism. Being world class at poker takes tremendous talent and if you disagree I challenge you to play at a public poker table in Las Vegas and see how much money you win. The professionals take from the amateurs 7 days a week and twice on Sundays. Horse Racing is similar, the jockeys might not be strong or quick but it takes tremendous talent to ride a thorough bred horse and again I'd challenge the OP to try running a race horse on a track and see if they can hold on. The fastest I've driven was 140 MPH and it was in a straight line for about 30 seconds and it required complete focus. I can't imagine going between 150 and 200 mph on an oval track for 3 plus hours with 50 other cars.

Are those sports difficult? Of course, but the skill sets are trainable and not something you're born with.

I'll take your driving example. A few years ago, I went to Germany on vacation, and it was mind-blowing on how fast the traffic sometimes moved on the Autobahn. But by the end of that trip, driving 180 km/hr (112 mph) seemed normal for me.

And that was only a 3 week trip averaging maybe 20-30 minutes each day driving that fast. Imagine what your driving skills would be like if you practiced driving fast for 5+ hours a day for several years.

hard worker with zero talent wrote:

And that was only a 3 week trip averaging maybe 20-30 minutes each day driving that fast. Imagine what your driving skills would be like if you practiced driving fast for 5+ hours a day for several years.

Beginners in lots of activities tend to improve quickly. Not many of them become world class, however long they keep trying.

Your statement is analogous to:

I never ran before, and completed a 5k in 25 minutes. Then after just 2 months of training I ran sub 19. Clearly this is a trainable skill and not innate talent, imagine how easy it will be to run sub 14 if I just train for a full year or two.

If steeplers are untalented, that does that say about obstacle racers who got trounced by steeplers in their own game?

When Warrior Dash offered big prize money, Max King and Kimber Mattox cleaned the clock. Next year, Bridget Franek showed up and beat Mattox, and left all the regular obstacle racers even further behind. They pulled the plug before Evan Jager and Emma Coburn could completely destroy the event.

hard worker with zero talent wrote:

That is correct for the shorter ultras like the 50K and 50-mile distances.

But you don't need to be a 2:30 marathoner to excel in multi-day events like Badwater, the Moab 240, and the Barkley. The skill sets are totally different and can be acquired by a no-talent guy with sufficient time, money, and motivation.

Part of the problem is that everyone lumps ultrarunning into a single category - as you point out a road 50k and the Moab 240 are nothing like each other and are hardly even the same sport.

But, those races you list all require different skills and to really excel they do require talent. To be a top competitor at Badwater you need to be able to handle the heat. Sure, you can train with saunas and all kinds of heat acclimation but at the end of the day there's a physiological trait in play that you can't control.

Barkley requires being able to handle sleep deprivation well, specifically being able to navigate off-trail at night in poor weather when you've been awake for 50 hours. Again, something you can work on but also something that certain people will never be able to overcome (see Jamil Coury). Etc etc

It's more like:

I never ran before, and completed a 5K in 25 minutes. Then after just 2 months of training I ran sub 19. Clearly this is trainable and if I dedicated my life to this from a young age, my lifetime best would have been around 16 flat.

But there are almost no sub 17 runners in the world. I went to a high school with 3000+ kids, and I'm the only one from that school who even attempted a 5K. I heard of that one freak who once ran sub 15, but he lives 1,000 miles away and retired a long time ago.

international fencing society wrote:

Fencing is a joke. There must be what, 3000 competitive fencers in America at most?

It’s like sailing or horse riding. You need money and classes to get started and you also need to pay to travel and compete. It’s not a high school or public ally available sport and there are high barriers to entry.

I imagine D1 fencing in America is an easy way to get into an Ivy League school.

They aren’t freak athletes at the top level of Fencing. Sure they’re quick and coordinated etc but I don’t think anyone sees the fencing in the olympics and is in awe at the athleticism on display. I think of it on the same level as sailing, polo, or other “rich white people” sports.

123 high schools in eight states offered fencing for 4,431 fencers in 2019. (Most of them are in four states, CA, GA, NJ and NY.)

In comparison.

Equestrian. 214 schools in five states. 1318 participants.

Sailing. 38 schools in three states. 488 participants.

High schools fencers have excellent chances of competing in college. 29.6% for boys and 38.2% for girls.

The famous climate change writer/environmentalist Bill McKibben was once ranked in the top 20 in the US in Cross Country Skiing. The guy had zero apparent athletic talent before he jumped into serious training and competition back when he was young.

My college roommate was a high school fencer, he didn't pursue after HS. and I thought fencing, what a joke of the a sport how hard can it be. He had multiple sabers (the easiest of the fencing disciplines) and we had a few skirmishes in our dorm room. Holy moly, I thought it would be easy it was not and he throttled me. Could it be easier to be a top fencer in the US than to be a top runner in terms of hours trained and other factors, quite likely but it doesn't mean it doesn't require talent.

Not requiring talent would mean anyone off the street could be competitive which isn't the case for most sports or games. No one is innately great at poker, you might be good at bluffing but you also have to be good at reading your opponents, solid at math and probability and have a great memory. Some of these things can be gained through practice but that's true of everything. If you are innately uncoordinated you might be able to become a decent fencer with lots of practice but you will never become the best. Some people don't progress even with significant practice, I know loads of golfers who spend hours practicing and play multiple rounds a week but never break 100 or 95.

18rabbitskiing wrote:

My college roommate was a high school fencer, he didn't pursue after HS. and I thought fencing, what a joke of the a sport how hard can it be. He had multiple sabers (the easiest of the fencing disciplines) and we had a few skirmishes in our dorm room. Holy moly, I thought it would be easy it was not and he throttled me. Could it be easier to be a top fencer in the US than to be a top runner in terms of hours trained and other factors, quite likely but it doesn't mean it doesn't require talent.

Your roommate had 4+ years of fencing experience, while you had 0. What did you expect? If you had his training and experience, you might have won easily.

umstead wrote:

The famous climate change writer/environmentalist Bill McKibben was once ranked in the top 20 in the US in Cross Country Skiing. The guy had zero apparent athletic talent before he jumped into serious training and competition back when he was young.

The operative word here is "apparent," as McKibben obviously did have latent talent for cross country skiing, which only became manifest once he took the sport up. His case actually exemplifies the importance of talent, and is similar to the trajectory of Linda Jackson, the investment banker-turned cyclist who didn't start riding seriously -or doing much else athletically- until she was in her thirties. Within two years she was riding for a pro team, eventually represented her native Canada in the Olympics, and won a bronze medal in the 1996 World Championships road race,.

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?

Coaching.

Modern Pentathlon. I knew a girl who went to the Olympics in that event. She was a mediocre college runner who grew up on a farm so she went to a development camp and ended up making the team. I can’t imagine there are more than 20-30 people in the US who compete in that.

Modern pentathlon obviously has little depth. Nevertheless, one needs to be far above average talent to even plausibly try fencing, shooting, riding and also needs decent aerobic capabilities for the swimming and running.

The two younger twin sisters of the German pentathlon olympic gold medalist Lena Schöneborn, Debbie and Rabea Schöneborn, switched to running about 3-4 years ago because it took less training time than pentathlon and got to ca. 1:11 2:27 in HM/Marathon within those 4 years, with Debbie getting 18th in the Tokyo Olympics.

Nico Motchebon got a world indoor medal in the 1993 and 5th in Atlanta 1996 with a best of 1:43.91 and he was a modern pentathlete (qualified but not participated in 1992 Olympics) before switching.

That fields lack depth does not mean one does not need quite a bit of talent for the top.

umstead wrote:

The famous climate change writer/environmentalist Bill McKibben was once ranked in the top 20 in the US in Cross Country Skiing. The guy had zero apparent athletic talent before he jumped into serious training and competition back when he was young.

I read his book on that (still on the shelf at my GF’s house) and ski raced,so had a sense of how he compared. He was nowhere near top 20 in the US. Possibly top 20 in his age group, which is a great achievement.

Distance running for sure.

And I’m a runner and I’ll admit it.

The Talent Show wrote:

umstead wrote:

The famous climate change writer/environmentalist Bill McKibben was once ranked in the top 20 in the US in Cross Country Skiing. The guy had zero apparent athletic talent before he jumped into serious training and competition back when he was young.

The operative word here is "apparent," as McKibben obviously did have latent talent for cross country skiing, which only became manifest once he took the sport up. His case actually exemplifies the importance of talent, and is similar to the trajectory of Linda Jackson, the investment banker-turned cyclist who didn't start riding seriously -or doing much else athletically- until she was in her thirties. Within two years she was riding for a pro team, eventually represented her native Canada in the Olympics, and won a bronze medal in the 1996 World Championships road race,.

Steve Way was sedentary and obese until early 30s, and then ran 3:08 with little training, and eventually became a 2:15 runner. Does that prove that distance running does not require much talent, or that he had latent talent for distance running?