What's the hardest sport to medal at?

[HangTime]

One of the lines I've seen Adlington come out with a lot over the past week is how hard it is to win a medal in her sport relative to others, not just in post-race interviews while emotions are running high, but also later on. Before I go on I should point out that I am not seeking to belittle her achievements or "stick the boot in", I just felt I had to raise the issue.

"Swimming is one of the hardest sports to medal at. We're not like other sports. It is so, so difficult

I think that cycling is a hell of a lot different to swimming," Adlington added.
"It's a lot harder to try and win a medal

In my opinion, to claim that the sport you participate in is one of the hardest to medal at could be viewed as somewhat disrespectful to people competing in other sports. I am sure the the road to becoming an Olympic swimmer is a tough one and that the level of competition is also very high. But the same can probably be said for some other sports too. Mo Farah did not just rock up to the Olympics and go for a jog.

Yes, if you look at sports that have complex apparatus, such as the Heptathalon, Cycling, Rowing etc, you could suggest that there is likely to be less competition, because fewer individuals around the world are going to have access to the requisite equipment at a young age and maybe some nations have a much better infrastructure to support such sports than others. So fewer people have the chance to develop and potentially become elite in those sports. But surely if you continue that argument on, swimming is maybe not as all-inclusive as say the generic event of 'running'. Not everyone around the world has access to sufficient volumes of water to learn/practice swimming, but nearly everyone is able to go running.

So then folks, what do you believe are the hardest sport(s) to medal at, and most importantly, why?

 

[Firestar_3x]

If she can't stand the heat get out of the frying pan.

I think gymnastics would be very hard to medal at.

 

[mp3duck]

I personally think the Multi-event athletic events (Heptathlon and Decathlon). You need to be good at lots of events over 2-3 days (not sure how many days Decathlon is).

 

[Skeeter]

Surely its just a case of how many people are competing combined with how spread out those competitors are from the winner.

The sport itself has nothing to do with it.

 

[Merlin5]

My opinion is this. Every sport is hard to medal at because you're always competing against others at the same level. However, imo, gymnastics and diving require the most technical skill in sports and are the most difficult to master, let alone competing.

 

[Ceryndrion]

I would in some regards agree that swimming is harder than many other disciplines, as there are few other sports in which all the other competitors are going against you at the same time, and their strokes can and will have an effect upon your own performance. That is not to say that it is the hardest by any stretch, but it does make life tougher.

 

[Jokester]

I think it's a bit ironic that it's coming from a swimmer, a discipline where the best go home absolutely laden with gold medals that athletes in other sports could only dream of that many oppurtunities to win.

 

[HangTime]

Surely its just a case of how many people are competing combined with how spread out those competitors are from the winner.

The sport itself has nothing to do with it.

I think the point/inference is that the number of people competing and the spread of competitors may vary between sports and possibly be down to more than just chance. So in other words some sports typically have more competitors with a narrower spread than others and therefore are harder to medal at.

Personally I am not convinced in terms of elite level competition that there is a massive inherent difference between sports in this regard, you will get phases in a sport where 'freak' individuals are dominant over a few years making it harder for others to medal, particularly if you get multiple freaks in the same discipline, but I don't believe that necessarily means over the longer term that a given sport is harder than others to medal at.

That said I can see an argument to suggest that the more barriers to entry there are to a given sport, the easier it is for people to medal at. So for example sports with lots of complex equipment like sailing, a lot of people won't have access boats, environmental conditions etc to be able to practice that, so maybe across the world the potential talent pool is greatly reduced compared to a generic running event. Therefore there is more chance of somebody who is naturally gifted at a given event never even getting the opportunity to try it.

 

[touch]

I would say the Cycling road race or Triathlon are the hardest to win. They are the only races where the fastest competitor does not necessarily win.
You need to be fast, get the tactics right and also have a bit of luck. Both of those events require you to work with your opponents to win, but at some point you need to turn against them, and they are going to be trying to do the same to you.

Also coupled with the fact that there are 100+ competitors in each race compared with 6-8 in swimming.

 

[oli collett]

I would say the Cycling road race or Triathlon are the hardest to win. They are the only races where the fastest competitor does not necessarily win.
You need to be fast, get the tactics right and also have a bit of luck. Both of those events require you to work with your opponents to win, but at some point you need to turn against them, and they are going to be trying to do the same to you.

Also coupled with the fact that there are 100+ competitors in each race compared with 6-8 in swimming.

I'd agree with the cycling road race, but you'd lump road cycling in with the ITT which whilst being incredibly hard, I don't think it would be the most difficult to get a medal if you were to target it.

 

[Weebull]

I think the point/inference is that the number of people competing and the spread of competitors may vary between sports and possibly be down to more than just chance. So in other words some sports typically have more competitors with a narrower spread than others and therefore are harder to medal at.

Are you talking about the hardest medal to win right now, or over all time?

Because if's the latter, then there's no such thing. It would be a statistical freak for the top band of competitors in a sport to always be impossible to break into.

Even if it's the former, how do you judge the ability of people in a sport where there's no absolute metric (nearly all team sports)?

If I had to pick one right now that would be the hardest to crack, I'd be tempted to say the 100m. The top three of last nights run all set times within the top ten of all time, and seven of them (would have been eight had Powell not pulled up) finished within 10 seconds. That's an insane standard.

 

[mmj_uk]

100m sprint is physically impossible for most people, I'd say triathlon/marathon terrified me the most personally, also the mainstream sports (football, tennis etc) really need people to have been playing from a young age due to them being professional sports and the standard really high.

Some of the events (cycling/rowing) are more about dedication/training though and only a select few people are ever going to have the opportunity, but I don't think it would be impossible for a relative nobody to win a medal against these athletes if they were given the chance to train for 3yrs and have a go at them.

 

[d_brennen]

Probably the equestrian disciplines, unless daddy has a truck load of cash to get rid of

 

[Jokester]

but I don't think it would be impossible for a relative nobody to win a medal against these athletes if they were given the chance to train for 3yrs and have a go at them.

Was it at the last Olympics some bloke had a go on twitter or something at one of the GB female swimmers and she challenged him to a swim off. He won.

 

[mollymoo]

I'm going to go for gymnastics, vaulting for example, how on earth do you even learn to do something like that? It just all looks insanely difficult to do.

 

[Weebull]

Was it at the last Olympics some bloke had a go on twitter or something at one of the GB female swimmers and she challenged him to a swim off. He won.

Source please.

 

[Superficial]

It's in many respects a non-sensical argument. The hardest event to MEDAL in from an impartial, objective, viewpoint is the event which has the closest matched competitors - it's that simple. From perspective of someone who partakes in the said event it will be hard because they, themselves, are having difficulty coming into the top 3 positions. The event is irrelevant.

there needs to be seapration between 'hardest' physically and hardest technically. then it becomes subjective as to what wins from that standpoint. presumably the most physically demanding is the marathon perhaps.

 

[Freddie1980]

I'm going to go for gymnastics, vaulting for example, how on earth do you even learn to do something like that? It just all looks insanely difficult to do.

Not to mention how you avoid breaking your neck while learning how to vault.

 

[Jokester]

Source please.

Well, I'm kinda asking the question, I know that the challenge happend and that he won, but beyond that it may have been after the Athens Olympics poor showing.

 

[Mad old tory]

Didn't get an answer from a quick google.

I lost a fair amount of respect for addlington this games. She got a bronze which is a fair achievement especially when you look at the times she swam but her attitude stank.