Banana Bread wrote:
This got me thinking of Bekele. How much would he destroy the field if he did cross country skiing. He is already done it in cross country. It would be amazing to see him in a Winter Olympics.
Yeah, like the cardiovascular system is the only part of the body that contributes to elite success?
One poster at
https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9283391&page=1wrote this opinion about swimming:
Swimming is 85% technique and 15% fitness. Maybe 90/10. If your technique is dreadful, all the aerobic fitness in the world buys you nothing in the pool.
Similarly, I would imagine that someone like Bekele wouldn't be too competitive if he tried cross country skiing.
I know I read somewhere that the great John Tracey, Olympic men's marathon silver medalist and twice world XC champ, admitted that he was just another swimmer, and not a good one. He was living in Rhode Island at the time, so maybe if he'd taken advantage of easy access to snow and XC skiing courses up there, he could have transitioned to competitive skiing with great success.
Probably not...but it is admittedly fun to speculate the "what if".