Exactly.

 

It's not knocking anyone on here's athletic ability, it's a matter of just how elite these athletes are. Outside of maybe 1 or 2 people on here, we'd all completely embarrass ourselves.

One of my initial thoughts was maybe the rowing events. I row on machines quite a bit and when I put the time in I'm pretty good at it. My thinking was it's only 2000 meters and with 6 months I could at least get to a point I could hang. Then I started looking at their times and pacing. I could do it and finish last if that's considered not embarrassed.

Exactly.

 

It's not knocking anyone on here's athletic ability, it's a matter of just how elite these athletes are. Outside of maybe 1 or 2 people on here, we'd all completely embarrass ourselves.

 

Yep. We are talking about being able to hang with the best of athletes in an entire country in their particular sport. Even in a country with only a few million people, in order to just "hang with" or not be embarrassed, you'd have to be one of the top handful of people at that sport in that population. That's pretty elite stuff. And it would certainly take more than 6 months in order to pull it off, if you even could at all. Most of us aren't even the best at anything in our own town. To think that any of us could compete well against the best in the world at any sport is a pipe dream at best.

Looking at the qualifying heat times for the men's 100 meter sprint and the guys from Palestine and Tuvalu (?) ran 11.8 seconds. When I was 17 and in track shape I ran around that. I was better at the 200 but the worst Olympic time I could find from this year was the guy from Benin who ran 22.1, which would have still smoked me but not any worse than in high school. :lol2:

Looking at the qualifying heat times for the men's 100 meter sprint and the guys from Palestine and Tuvalu (?) ran 11.8 seconds. When I was 17 and in track shape I ran around that. I was better at the 200 but the worst Olympic time I could find from this year was the guy from Benin who ran 22.1, which would have still smoked me but not any worse than in high school. :lol2:

 

11.8 is a full second behind the top 4 finishers in the Women's 100, and would place you dead last in that final. The top 7 women ran 10.94 or better in this Olympics.

I feel like this thread has devolved a great deal from the point Bill Murray was making, and what I thought the thread was intending. It wasn't who could be competitive (read: not embarrassed) in an Olympic event (answer: NO ONE), it was they should put an average guy in to show the world just how extraordinary these athletes are. My point being, I could swim 100 free, could do a flip turn, and would be a representative to the world of "Average Joe" swimmer. Not that I could "not embarrass" myself.

11.8 is a full second behind the top 4 finishers in the Women's 100, and would place you dead last in that final. The top 7 women ran 10.94 or better in this Olympics.

 

I hope you didn't interpret my post to imply that those times were somehow competitive (they weren't even competitive in KY high school :lol2:). I mean, I found a nation I'd never heard of before when looking for the slowest times. :lol2:

I hope you didn't interpret my post to imply that those times were somehow competitive. I mean, I found a nation I'd never heard of before when looking for the slowest times. :lol2:

 

Not at all.....When you mentioned your time of around 11.8, I thought that was a pretty solid time for a high school sprinter. It was certainly a lot faster than I could run. I just looked the women's times up for comparison sake. At which point your 11.8 which would have smoked me made me realize I was pretty slow.

I feel like this thread has devolved a great deal from the point Bill Murray was making, and what I thought the thread was intending. It wasn't who could be competitive (read: not embarrassed) in an Olympic event (answer: NO ONE), it was they should put an average guy in to show the world just how extraordinary these athletes are. My point being, I could swim 100 free, could do a flip turn, and would be a representative to the world of "Average Joe" swimmer. Not that I could "not embarrass" myself.

 

BigV did ask this question after referencing Murray--

 

Here's the rules. Pick any sport they do at the Summer Olympics, team or individual. In this scenario, you will be allowed 6 months of intense training for that sport with the team/individual coaches...not gonna just throw you to the wolves here, gonna give you a little bit of a fighting chance. What ever you pick, you will participate at least at a minimal level. For instance, if you pick swimming you will swim in at least one event, your pick. If you pick basketball, you would have to be on the court for X number of minutes first and second half, not just going to put you in last 30 seconds up 55 points over Angola, you will actually play.

 

I think the purpose was to pick a sport that we could be at least minimally competitive at after 6 months with the proper training.

Just no way I could have competed in anything and I highly doubt anyone on here could without embarrassing themselves. These guys and gals have done 100 of thousands, maybe millions of reps in their sport, nothing any of us have time for if we want to eat.

Watching synchronized trampoline right now. Yeah, I could do that.

I ran the 800m in 2:10 as a freshman in high school. The best of the best HS runners in the 800m in NKY, just barely broke 2 minutes.

 

Guy ran it in 1 min and 42 seconds. Absurd.

 

Hardest race in track in my opinion.

I maxed out at 10.8 in the 100m so I would have looked OK in the qualifying round when the top guys were jogging out 10.3s to advance... :lol2: