Most naturally talented person you have known personally

609 wrote:

Went to high school with a girl who wound up going to the Olympics. She was just an insanely talented athlete -- was also varsity in basketball, won states in both the 3200 and the javelin her senior year. She also worked super hard.

Sounds like Erin Donahue, 1500 meter Olympian, threw the jav at UNC

Lubert Lewis

A 14 year old kid that joined the track team back at school, ran 2:19 in his first race (never trained) that May and worked to 2:05 in July.

Fan of the man wrote:

rviiv wrote:Lance was beating adult professionals as a teenager also. He was also national champion. What are you talking about???

When Lance was in his early 20s everyone was saying that he was one of the most talented cyclists who'd ever come along. He definitely qualifies as "naturally talented".

Of course Lance Armstong was a talent. He was a few years older than Weldon and me in the dallas area growing up. Was a good HS xc runner and totally dominant triathlete. Was in the papers all the time. Sure, I guess he could have been doping in HS .

I'll have to ask JK how good he was at running.

rojo wrote:

Fan of the man wrote:

When Lance was in his early 20s everyone was saying that he was one of the most talented cyclists who'd ever come along. He definitely qualifies as "naturally talented".

Of course Lance Armstong was a talent. He was a few years older than Weldon and me in the dallas area growing up. Was a good HS xc runner and totally dominant triathlete. Was in the papers all the time. Sure, I guess he could have been doping in HS .

I'll have to ask JK how good he was at running.

Doping doesn't just make you extraordinary at your sport and a champion. Lance was extremely talented and worked incredibly hard, harder than most can imagine, and he doped on top of that. Most of the tour was dirty.

Metric Miler wrote:

rojo wrote:

Of course Lance Armstong was a talent. He was a few years older than Weldon and me in the dallas area growing up. Was a good HS xc runner and totally dominant triathlete. Was in the papers all the time. Sure, I guess he could have been doping in HS .

I'll have to ask JK how good he was at running.

Doping doesn't just make you extraordinary at your sport and a champion. Lance was extremely talented and worked incredibly hard, harder than most can imagine, and he doped on top of that. Most of the tour was dirty.

You don't just dope "on top of that", the dope is what allows you to work so hard.

Metric Miler wrote:

Doping doesn't just make you extraordinary at your sport and a champion. Lance was extremely talented and worked incredibly hard, harder than most can imagine, and he doped on top of that. Most of the tour was dirty.

Rojo, I have no problem with your post. Of course he'd be fast in Dallas and a talent, in Dallas.

What happens nationally competitive gets blown up into the myth, like Metric Miler did.

Metric Miler, you should probably check into Chris Carmichael's sordid history doping teenagers and making some of them sick.

Lance rode with Carmichael on that very same team.

Retty wrote:

Lance was a doper but it is ridiculous to say he did not have talent. No one wins 7 tdfs without talent - I don't care how much they dope.

They win with a great deal of assistance from ASO, USA Cycling, and the UCI. The UCI admitted they were complicit in protecting Armstrong. Why the Armstrong myth lives on mystifies me.

Lemond had international talent and it was obvious as a teenager.

I'm going to risk name-dropping this guy because this is an odd choice. The most naturally talented athlete I've ever seen was a punter named Kevin Stemke. He was a great soccer player, a great basketball player, All-American Punter and Ray Guy Award winner as a punter at Wisconsin. He could also kick fields over 60+ yards. He was so good, they named an award after him given annually for the state's best high school kicker/punter.

He bounced around the NFL for a years. He was fast too - a 4.6-4.7 in the 40.

The reason I mention him is because he barely ever worked at it. It took him very little time to master a skill.

He wasn't big or necessarily really strong, but he was a great athlete his entire life and never seemed to do anything lackluster. You could put him in a sport he's not familiar with and he'd be beating everyone by the second game. There are just some people out there who were given the innate ability to succeed athletically and he was one of those types.

Kid I grew up with - He could do any sport. We were in a big urban HS league that has produced a stunning amount of pro athletes. He was the star on every team. Bball, football, HJ in track.

He won a full ride to UCLA for football (QB) but was caught in a cocaine bust 2 months before his HS graduation.

Lost the scholarship. Went to a lesser college and gradually fell apart...wound up dying last year in a hit and run accident, in his mid-40s.

He was just better than everyone else physically - didn't have to take time to learn how to do things - he could just propel his body through space without training.

dumb as a post tho.

i saw him compete in MS too. perhaps we both saw him

Pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

reformed triathlete wrote:

When I was in my mid 30s in San Diego I was a decent, but definitely not pro level triathlete. This Texas kid came into town and was staying with Scott Tinley. I mostly swam with him, but did a few run workouts and bike rides with him. He clearly was an immensely talented endurance athlete. The kid's name was Lance Armstrong.

Who, was internationally average.

I'm sorry. This story does not pass the smell test. He was fast in a sport with a tiny, American elite pool. Fast in the U.S. means very little.

Greg lemond on the other hand was so fast he was beating adults as a teenager. Armstrong was not even close.

Lance was a freak of nature as a teen, I recall reading about him in SI when he was 16. People were predicted greatness back then.

There's a half marathon in a city I used to live in, on a pretty brutal course. Guessing a 1000 foot elevation gain, long uphills, brutal downhill, lots of crazy rollers. Weird course. Regardless, one year this guy nobody has seen at road races before runs a 1:08 or 1:09. Pretty decent, right? Dude looked heavier than Rono in that 1982 10K where he outleaned AlSal, by maybe 20 pounds. In other words, not someone you'd expect to see run under 1:10. I talk with him. He hadn't run a step in 10-15 years, he said, and hadn't planned on running until the day before. I watched him for some time after that. Didn't run, far as I could tell.

Knew a guy who could return to top form after a long break with just a few weeks training. One time he came back from 2 months at sea and ran 3:47 after 4 weeks training. I don't what training he was doing on a fishing boat but I imagine it wasn't much.

I have seem my share of unknowns with extraordinary talent who never realized their full potential and remained unknowns.

Two super talented athletes, both of whom I know and did manage to achieve.

Kimberly Ann Gallagher aka Kim Gallagher or Kimi. In the June 1982 issue of T&FN, she was ranked 1st or 2nd in the 800, mile, 5K, 4x800, DMR and 4x400. The summer after H.S., she did some training with the University of Arizona XC team, she has no intention of running cross, she was getting back in shape after taking some down time. I was told she was able to complete every run and probably could have been a scorer on the men's team. Kim had amazing endurance, but lost interested in long distance around age 17 or 18.

And in the 1980 issue of T&FN, Jackie Joyner-Kersee was ranked in the 100, 200, 400, 100h, 300h, HJ and LJ. Btw, I think her main sports were basketball and volleyball. I think at some point she also played softball and did competitive dance. JJK is with out a doubt the greatest female I have ever seen. At the end of her track career, in her 30s, she started playing professional basketball.

I ran with this guy in high school that long jumped 25', ran 1:49, was state XC top 10 in 15:20s and ran the school 4 x 100 (10.48) and 4 x 400 (46). He only ran 9:21 though but still was a beast. He is still considered a legend in Florida.

Tagging-on to Florida, I would have to say a guy named Kevin Bateman. I remember the day he drove up to the track in a matte black Harley, gets off his bike, starts talking to the head coach, all the girls drooling. He said something about being a quarterback in high school.

My coach then hands him a javelin, we start walking over. Bateman looks at the javelin in his hand, feels the weight, tosses it up in his hand a little, then coach directs him to the runway. Bateman runs up the runway, and unleashes a throw that almost kills a sprinter on the far side of the track. He basically cleared the football field. My coach was ghost-faced.

The throw was well over 200-feet. He goes on to throw 234' at Conference, wins Penn Relays, makes the Trials, places 13th at the US Olympic Trials, throws 72m. He threw the javelin probably 6 times that year and promptly retired.

It was amazing. Richard Curry is another freak of nature I had the pleasure of watching work out with Tayna Lawrence and Sheri-Ann Brooks. All Olympic medalists.

Early in his career as an architect, when I was very young, my father worked for a man named Dan Carmichael.

I remember Dad saying that Mr. Carmichael was great at everything he ever tried.

The following three links sum it up pretty well:

https://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2015/02/04/sections/memorials/6674/index.xml

http://www.schoedinger.com/obituaries/Daniel-Carmichael/#

!/Obituary

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/sports/2014/08/01/honored-vet-thrived-on-challenges.html

My father, who is gone now, like Dan, added some years ago that Dan went bowling once in his life. "He bowled over 200 and gave it up, because he didn't think it was a very interesting game."

If that sounds arrogant, it wasn't meant to be. I never heard anyone say a negative word about him. Dad thought the world of him.

I knew Jeff George growing up in Indiana. Guy was a freak of nature @ QB in HS. Easily the most gifted football player I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of high school players come and go, some more successful than George in the NFL. None were even close to his level of talent. He just never seemed to fully tap into it.

Ran against a guy in HS who was a 4:06 1600/1:50 800 and foot locker (Kinney back then) finalist. He ran a 49.x 400, was a sub 40 IH, could surf well and could dunk a basketball. Freak. All of his HS running was off of 40-60 mpw. Ended up running 8:18ish in the steeple and just missing out on US colors.