The figures might change after they’ve sobered up.
This either highlights how deluded 25% of the British public are or it’s a damning indictment to overall quality of our athletes and I think we can safely say it’s the former.
The same people who thought after Brexit and the power of the British foreign office was gonna get better trade deals with EU members as well as the rest of the world alone.
Let them chill for a bit, shake off that hangover, and then they can get back in the game
Even without training I could probably qualify to be on France’s Lacrosse team in 2028. It would be a qualification by default since there’s like six or seven people in the entire country who are aware that this sport exists, I just have to make a note in my agenda to send an application and I’m in.
Free vacation to LA baby, Raygun style.
Badminton, Table Tennis, Rowing and 100m sprint being near the top are absolutely ridiculous.
It was 1 in a million, but then we saw Breaking and realised it was probably easy as shit to be an Olympian.
Also, I am somewhat surprised we don’t have better appearances in the Air Pistol/Rifle too. We do have some World Class shooters, but we seem to not follow the Olympic Qualification methods properly
I bet most of them have never done any kind of regular exercise. When I took up running 21 years ago, I loved it and thought maybe if I work hard enough I could become a pro, 21 years later I’m close to the fittest I have ever been and I am miles away from being elite.
100m 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Olympics? completed it m8
The same people who voted for brexit? 🤣.
Rifle shooting is insanely difficult than it looks. I did it for a while when I was in college and for the first month, I was just happy if I hit the target paper. Towards the end, getting a few 10+ shots was an achievement. These Olympians hit consistent 10+ shot for the entire duration of the competition, which is an insane feat
unbelievably based. is this supposed to make us look bad?
If Raygun did it anything is possible
As someone who lives in Britain this is incredibly funny
100m sprint??? I was quite fast as a teenager, ran it in about 14 seconds, but towards the end I was blowing out of my arse. It’s a much longer distance than people think it is.
The only one that is not completely batshit crazy is Track Cycling and that’s only because Rowers have switched sports and made the transition in 4 years (Rebecca Romero for example). But we’re talking about Olympic Medal standard rowers here. Unless the survey was done in the Olympic Village.
table tennis lmao.. as a table tennis player this is funny to see. They have no clue about the levels to this game. Wouldn’t be able to return first attack a pro throws at them.. or even return a serve.
The 100m one is hilarious. People are completely delusional – for one, most of these people couldn’t even sprint 50m never mind 100m.
The top two seem right (not percentages – but just those two sports being the top two).
It’s not unheard of for people, even getting on in their years, to win national championships after only pursuing the sport competitively for 2-3 years. If you’re in a country that sends teams to the archery event you don’t even need to win – just rank top 4 in your country’s gender. Now, is the number of people that is realistic for better than “1 in 10 people”? No, absolutely not – the percentage is all wrong. But the intuition for what sports are still open to them seems accurate. You don’t need to have been training since childhood, born with the right body type and be in the goldilocks age range like most Olympic sports.
If I had to qualify for the olympics in 4 years or I’d die, the first thing I’d be doing is joining a shooting club, an archery club, and taking up Greco-Roman Wrestling. In about a year I’d know if I have what it takes to qualify for either Shooting or Archery. If I don’t have what it takes I’d drop them both, begin pumping short-term performance enhancers WADA won’t find in 2 years, and getting fit for a Greco-Roman Wrestling weight division my country doesn’t send anyone to. I’d still need to win the Oceanic-African qualifiers, but most weight divisions in that competition only have 3-5 entrants (with two from each weight division qualifying). Chances are I’m dying, but I’d put myself at around 1% odds I can beat one other person in Greco-Roman wrestling (if I train every morning and every evening for 4 years straight).
The wrestling only works if you’re in the right conference though.
well maybe not in a top nation like great britain… but i think i could do something in bad/small nations. Im an athletic guy and not too old 😛
If it was a home Olympics where you’re guaranteed a spot as a country, maybe you might be able to learn a sport that very few play to be picked, or if you go get some citizenship for some small Pacific Island or African nation and qualify that way.
In the UK though, nah, no chance. Any sport they’ll qualify for the standard is way too high to be picking it up, and you have to go through European or World qualifying for a ton of sports so won’t have an easier path like you might in a different continent.
Table tennis is so misunderstood
One in four of those who took this Survey. Statistics of average are worthless.
It’s hilarious that 10m air rifle tops the list. I’m a pistol shooter trying to get in the Olympics. I tried air rifle once and learned how insanely difficult it is. Elite air rifle shooters aren’t even human.
The question phrasing probably made more people say one, because they were thinking of what they’d have the best chance in rather than just saying no
We got a player who just started to play rugby 7 six month prior to the Olympics and won the gold, so why not?
Shooting and Archery, the two events where the camera angles give no idea of the actual difficulty, being on top makes complete sense.
What I love about these polls is that there probably are people out there who could have an incredible natural talent at something but not be aware of it, and if they applied themselves then who knows how far they could go.
But those people are definitely not in this 27%.
Everyone must remember though that Eddie the Eagle and Eric the Eel exist. The bar is low.
Football is awesome. People are pros and they dont even qualify.
Tbh the 10m air pistol looks easy af. With a couple years of serious training i think the average joe could qualify for the olympics
What are the odds that the people saying trampoline don’t actually know what that sport entails? People probably heard it and thought “sounds simple enough” but not only is actual trampoline insanely hard, GB has the literal gold medalist in it so you’d have to be better than her
The biggest thing standing in the way of most people actually doing this is money. Lots and lots of money. I’m assuming they’re not completely unathletic, but obviously that would stand in the way as well. Kristen Faulkner is obviously a good example of this who didn’t start competitive cycling up until 7 years ago. At the same time, she was also an athlete at Harvard (on the rowing team as well), so she knew how to train her body to hold up. However, she just won two Golds. So yes, if you committed your life over the next 3 or so years to mastering just one of these things for over 40 hours per week, you could probably be an Olympian. The reason that you don’t is because it’s fucking hard
Real question is, what sport could a 40 year old realistically qualify for by the next Olympics?
The delulu is strong
If she can do it we can all do it
Eddie the Eagle did it.
And yet Aussie Raygun did pull off something that everyone in the survey aspires to.
25% of Brits saw Raygun and thought “I got this”
how is breaking not at 100%
I can run for 10 seconds. The only problem is I’d be about 40 meters from the finish line.
100m sprint? For real bro
As a previously “elite” wrestler, I can confidently say people have no idea the massive difference between the 1% and an Olympian, let alone a world champion.
We all thought we were good because we were all Americans. Then we got a new coach who was a multiple time world champion. It was embarrassing. He was +5 years out of competition and was dominating bigger guys who placed in international competition.
I can say with 100% confidence I would not qualify for any of these even if I started training today.
This seems bonkers, but apparently one of the US cycling gold medalists, I think it was the women’s road race, only started cycling seriously a few years ago, before that she was working in an office job.
5% think they could do golf? LOL
People are really, really, really (should I go another really?) fucking stupid.
48 comments
The figures might change after they’ve sobered up.
This either highlights how deluded 25% of the British public are or it’s a damning indictment to overall quality of our athletes and I think we can safely say it’s the former.
The same people who thought after Brexit and the power of the British foreign office was gonna get better trade deals with EU members as well as the rest of the world alone.
Let them chill for a bit, shake off that hangover, and then they can get back in the game
Even without training I could probably qualify to be on France’s Lacrosse team in 2028. It would be a qualification by default since there’s like six or seven people in the entire country who are aware that this sport exists, I just have to make a note in my agenda to send an application and I’m in.
Free vacation to LA baby, Raygun style.
Badminton, Table Tennis, Rowing and 100m sprint being near the top are absolutely ridiculous.
It was 1 in a million, but then we saw Breaking and realised it was probably easy as shit to be an Olympian.
Also, I am somewhat surprised we don’t have better appearances in the Air Pistol/Rifle too. We do have some World Class shooters, but we seem to not follow the Olympic Qualification methods properly
I bet most of them have never done any kind of regular exercise. When I took up running 21 years ago, I loved it and thought maybe if I work hard enough I could become a pro, 21 years later I’m close to the fittest I have ever been and I am miles away from being elite.
100m 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Olympics? completed it m8
The same people who voted for brexit? 🤣.
Rifle shooting is insanely difficult than it looks. I did it for a while when I was in college and for the first month, I was just happy if I hit the target paper. Towards the end, getting a few 10+ shots was an achievement. These Olympians hit consistent 10+ shot for the entire duration of the competition, which is an insane feat
unbelievably based. is this supposed to make us look bad?
If Raygun did it anything is possible
As someone who lives in Britain this is incredibly funny
100m sprint??? I was quite fast as a teenager, ran it in about 14 seconds, but towards the end I was blowing out of my arse. It’s a much longer distance than people think it is.
The only one that is not completely batshit crazy is Track Cycling and that’s only because Rowers have switched sports and made the transition in 4 years (Rebecca Romero for example). But we’re talking about Olympic Medal standard rowers here. Unless the survey was done in the Olympic Village.
table tennis lmao.. as a table tennis player this is funny to see. They have no clue about the levels to this game. Wouldn’t be able to return first attack a pro throws at them.. or even return a serve.
The 100m one is hilarious. People are completely delusional – for one, most of these people couldn’t even sprint 50m never mind 100m.
The top two seem right (not percentages – but just those two sports being the top two).
It’s not unheard of for people, even getting on in their years, to win national championships after only pursuing the sport competitively for 2-3 years. If you’re in a country that sends teams to the archery event you don’t even need to win – just rank top 4 in your country’s gender. Now, is the number of people that is realistic for better than “1 in 10 people”? No, absolutely not – the percentage is all wrong. But the intuition for what sports are still open to them seems accurate. You don’t need to have been training since childhood, born with the right body type and be in the goldilocks age range like most Olympic sports.
If I had to qualify for the olympics in 4 years or I’d die, the first thing I’d be doing is joining a shooting club, an archery club, and taking up Greco-Roman Wrestling. In about a year I’d know if I have what it takes to qualify for either Shooting or Archery. If I don’t have what it takes I’d drop them both, begin pumping short-term performance enhancers WADA won’t find in 2 years, and getting fit for a Greco-Roman Wrestling weight division my country doesn’t send anyone to. I’d still need to win the Oceanic-African qualifiers, but most weight divisions in that competition only have 3-5 entrants (with two from each weight division qualifying). Chances are I’m dying, but I’d put myself at around 1% odds I can beat one other person in Greco-Roman wrestling (if I train every morning and every evening for 4 years straight).
The wrestling only works if you’re in the right conference though.
well maybe not in a top nation like great britain… but i think i could do something in bad/small nations. Im an athletic guy and not too old 😛
If it was a home Olympics where you’re guaranteed a spot as a country, maybe you might be able to learn a sport that very few play to be picked, or if you go get some citizenship for some small Pacific Island or African nation and qualify that way.
In the UK though, nah, no chance. Any sport they’ll qualify for the standard is way too high to be picking it up, and you have to go through European or World qualifying for a ton of sports so won’t have an easier path like you might in a different continent.
Table tennis is so misunderstood
One in four of those who took this Survey. Statistics of average are worthless.
It’s hilarious that 10m air rifle tops the list. I’m a pistol shooter trying to get in the Olympics. I tried air rifle once and learned how insanely difficult it is. Elite air rifle shooters aren’t even human.
The question phrasing probably made more people say one, because they were thinking of what they’d have the best chance in rather than just saying no
We got a player who just started to play rugby 7 six month prior to the Olympics and won the gold, so why not?
Shooting and Archery, the two events where the camera angles give no idea of the actual difficulty, being on top makes complete sense.
What I love about these polls is that there probably are people out there who could have an incredible natural talent at something but not be aware of it, and if they applied themselves then who knows how far they could go.
But those people are definitely not in this 27%.
Everyone must remember though that Eddie the Eagle and Eric the Eel exist. The bar is low.
Football is awesome. People are pros and they dont even qualify.
Tbh the 10m air pistol looks easy af. With a couple years of serious training i think the average joe could qualify for the olympics
What are the odds that the people saying trampoline don’t actually know what that sport entails? People probably heard it and thought “sounds simple enough” but not only is actual trampoline insanely hard, GB has the literal gold medalist in it so you’d have to be better than her
The biggest thing standing in the way of most people actually doing this is money. Lots and lots of money. I’m assuming they’re not completely unathletic, but obviously that would stand in the way as well. Kristen Faulkner is obviously a good example of this who didn’t start competitive cycling up until 7 years ago. At the same time, she was also an athlete at Harvard (on the rowing team as well), so she knew how to train her body to hold up. However, she just won two Golds. So yes, if you committed your life over the next 3 or so years to mastering just one of these things for over 40 hours per week, you could probably be an Olympian. The reason that you don’t is because it’s fucking hard
Real question is, what sport could a 40 year old realistically qualify for by the next Olympics?
The delulu is strong
If she can do it we can all do it
Eddie the Eagle did it.
And yet Aussie Raygun did pull off something that everyone in the survey aspires to.
25% of Brits saw Raygun and thought “I got this”
how is breaking not at 100%
I can run for 10 seconds. The only problem is I’d be about 40 meters from the finish line.
100m sprint? For real bro
As a previously “elite” wrestler, I can confidently say people have no idea the massive difference between the 1% and an Olympian, let alone a world champion.
We all thought we were good because we were all Americans. Then we got a new coach who was a multiple time world champion. It was embarrassing. He was +5 years out of competition and was dominating bigger guys who placed in international competition.
I can say with 100% confidence I would not qualify for any of these even if I started training today.
This seems bonkers, but apparently one of the US cycling gold medalists, I think it was the women’s road race, only started cycling seriously a few years ago, before that she was working in an office job.
5% think they could do golf? LOL
People are really, really, really (should I go another really?) fucking stupid.