What Olympic sport would be the hardest to get the gold?

[saibot]

Originally Posted by steveklein

Suni Lee - gold medalist - will be on the Auburn University gymnastics team this year.

Yes, but...as I already mentioned, Olympic/World gymnasts who go on to compete at the college level don't maintain the same level of difficulty. I shouldn't say never, but it is rare. Watch a NCAA women's gymnastics meet and compare to an Olympic or World Championship meet, and if you know anything about gymnastics you will see that the difficulty level of the NCAA routines is noticeably lower. It's just not necessary for those gymnasts to perform at such a high level in order to be competitive.

[IShootNikon]

Which of these sports would be "easier" to pickup and be at least acceptable or look like you know what you're doing.

After some thought, gymnastics would be at the top of the list. If you don't know what you are doing, you can die.

And just learning to do flips, fault, pommel horse is going to take more than just a few months.

Some sports you can kind of feign like you know what you're doing (i.e. I can freestyle swim or row a boat but obviously not at Olympic level).

[grad_student200]

Originally Posted by saibot

The average person could do just about nothing in gymnastics. Average people can run, swim, ride bikes, throw things, etc., but faced with a springboard and vault, or a balance beam, or a pommel horse, what would YOU do?

I think that gymnastics has to have the greatest divide between average person and Olympic champion. Some top college athletes would be getting close, though.

Judo and Wrestling would be tough. In those sports, one has to know the moves. At the HS level, it's very common to have mismatches in wrestling where an entry-level sophomore may have to face a senior with 12 years of experience. When that happens, the sophomore usually gets pinned under 40 seconds or so. That is common. The problem for a senior like that though is if he wins the state tournament and gets a college scholarship, then now HE has to deal with collegiate wrestlers with more experience at that level. It's non uncommon for former HS state champions to lost over half their matches in the freshman year because everyone else has 12 or more years of experience.

Now, of that Olympic wrestling group, they were usually the best in college or at the international level. So, the average person would struggle in wrestling or judo, which is similar in gross years of experience.

[CharlesRamon]

Skateboarding