Could somebody like Ronaldo win Olympic 800m gold with 12 months training?

The answer is no. There could be a few soccer players who could have been world class 800m runners but we do not know who they are.

No lmao

What do you base that on? You're coping if you think anyone with a sniff of soccer talent in most of the world would choose track. Most top soccer players like Ronaldo these days are already signed up and training in youth academies by the time they are 13.

Just checked Ronaldo's Wiki and he was signed up by a professional club and training at their academy at 12 years of age, and was already playing soccer for an adult club at 10. Ther is no way any world class 800m talent would be identified, and even if there was, there is no way he would ever have chosen athletics.

The fastest 800m runner out of a massive pool of 400/800m and 800/1500m runners is going to be faster than someone out of a pool of soccer players. There’s no data available, but probably less than 10% of soccer players could ever break 2:00. And to have a chance, it would be 800m training from day 1 and not just 12 months

George Foreman won an Olympic Gold Medal 11 Months after he first went to a Boxing Club

There'd be heaps of world class soccer players who would have the talent to be elite distance runners, if they were trained for a young age.

They obviously had no intention of doing anything other than football though, as they clearly loved football, and had the potential to make $20 million + per year.

Players who stand out to me are:

Dembele - the French International who plays for Paris Saint Germain

Phil Foden - English International, plays for Manchester City

Bruno Fernandes - Portuguese, plays for Man United.

These guys are all fairly small and lean, and cover a ton of ground during a match.

Athletes who are the best in their sport have bodies optimized for that sport. That's why we don't see more crossover. For example, Lance was a 7-time TDF winner - ok with some extra assistance. But still, his marathon PR was about 2:46. Even if he trained for the marathon for years in his prime I doubt he would ever have been more than about a 2:20 guy, and certainly never close to 2:05. The point is he had a body type that was optimal for biking but not for running.

It's possible someone like Renaldo could have been a very good 800 runner but the gap between Rudisha and a 1:45 guy is huge.

Dennis Wise was notorious for a lack of discipline and for being a heavy drinker and night clubber. I can't even remember him being known for his speed, although he did have a lot of energy. After retirement, at the age of 36, he ran 2:08 in a BBC superstars show and narrowly lost to Du'aine Ladejio, who was 35 and the former European 400m champion. That was probably off the couch from Dennis Wise, overweight and after coming back from a nightclub wasted at 3 am the night before.

More like 10% at least of top league soccer players could run sub 2 now, and 90% with 6 months training.

Even If Ronaldo was the most talented human for the 800m (which is very unlikely) and wasn't 38 years old but 25, it takes a lot more than 1 year of training to fully achieve one's potential.

So the answer is definitely an easy NO.

And it would be quite safe to bet against it even if Ronaldo had been training for it his whole life. Being the best in one thing doesn't mean you can be the best at everything. It doesn't work like that.

Not true at all. This might be true in Spain.

But I guarantee you Tyreek Hill never once thought about playing soccer.

I’d argue our fast sprinters and football players would dominated soccer before soccer players could ever become fast sprinters.

I think this is about right, if not even a little pessimiatic. But of course going back to the OP, there's a huge gap between a barely sub 2 800, and winning Olympic gold.

My friend in high school played soccer in the fall and track in the spring, ran 1:59 and I think around 4:30 for the mile on not a ton of mpw. He then walked onto a d1 rowing team and after graduating ran in the 2:40s at Boston. Incredible athlete and person, but I really doubt pro athletes in a running-heavy sport would all have an immensely difficult time doing what he did in high school

I’m not even lying when I say I could probably pull a future world class 800m runner out of my local hs soccer team. I’ve seen skinny guys from the soccer team come out for track and run a 49-51 second 400m junior-senior year with only 1 season of training. They always refused to do long distance, but I knew if they dedicated themselves to it they would be incredibly good with that speed. We lose out on a lot of good talent in track because of other sports.

Something missing from the conversation is that soccer players are training as runners from a young age…a younger age than runners.

At least in the US, a typical kid will not start running any meaningful mileage until 7th grade/12yo, at the earliest.

A kid might start playing soccer at 5yo and be building their mileage, indirectly, from that point.

Socially, it is weird to tell a 7yo to go run a 3 mile fartlek, but that is roughly what a soccer game is, and some practices, sometimes multiple times per week.

Soccer is the western equivalent to the African run to school.

this is the stupidest question i've seen here all day. it might even make top 3 of the month

The closest example of a quick transition from soccer I can think of is Remco Evanapoel. He was on the Belgian national youth soccer team until he was 17 years old, then switched to cycling and won Junior Worlds in both the TT and road race a year later. He started winning senior level world tour races when he was 19.

No.

Rudisha couldn't, Cruz couldn't - no one could on 12 months training. A soccer player also lives in a different sporting universe from a champion 800 runner. Nope.

Exactly. The soccer player worship in here is bizarre. Now, I can definitely accept that many of histories best 800m runners simply never tried, but there is no reason to believe high level soccer would be over represented with undiscovered world-class 800m runners.