Google Karen Hanlen. 2 1/2 years ago she started mountain biking, now she is competing in the olympics.
There is hope for you all.

They have weight divisions in a lot of the sports where its an advantage to be big, they even have a lightweight version of rowing. So I reckon my best chance would be to lobby for weight divisions in sports where its an advantage to be small, I think I would do OK in the heavyweight 10000 metres.

Tall is needed for the rowing and is a hell of a help in the cycling (long legs = long levers etc.)

Victoria Pendleton is 5’5″. These programs in place to look for potential athletes for the future would miss her.

Cox for the 8. OK for you low altitude jobs but I think I might need to chop off my legs…and arms…and go on a diet to make the weight. You just have to be able to shout “stroke,stroke,one more time, looking good…” a lot. You also must be able to put up with looking like the sickly runt when out on the piss with your 8 more athletic mates. There might be sympathy shags from their cast offs if you are very lucky though.

Nope, nobody’s come even cose to a sensible suggestion. As I said before, there simply isn’t one. (not even the cox for the eight).

I was born in Sharjah – do the UAE need any mountain bikers I wonder?

Can’t be a lot of competition for the skiing places in the UAE, though 🙂

And to the OP, you haven’t got 4 years, you’ve got about 3 probably by the time you take selection into account. At 10 hrs/week and 50 weeks/year, you’ve got about 1500 hours of training – not enough for any skill based event I’d say, even an obscure one. (Google suggests 10,000 hours would be needed, although I’m suspicious that all the top links have exactly the same answer…)

Cross-country skiing seems a good bet, or you could be the next Eddie the Eagle?

Edit: Or get together with a few mates and start a handball team…

Tall is needed for the rowing and is a hell of a help in the cycling (long legs = long levers etc.)

Emma Pooley is tiny ,Cav isnt big ,Marco Pantani was very small.Im fact if you hang around a road race its like mixing with jockeys there are very many small lean people

10,000 hours is the standard quoted, although this has not been proven as there are so many exceptions, e.g. elite level after “just” 3000 and non elite after 25,000.

I also think that number is based on chess and darts. There was a British Journal of Sport Medicine podcast on that subject a few weeks ago for those interested.

10,000 hours is the standard quoted, although this has not been proven as there are so many exceptions, e.g. elite level after “just” 3000 and non elite after 25,000.

I’m not surprised, as I said the fact that all the top google links had the same answer was pretty suspicious. But still, even 3000 hours is too much if the OP wants to be genuinely skilled in time for the next Olympics (assuming he works fulltime, of course.) Which means going for an obscure sport that the UK doesn’t compete in, or getting nationality in a lower population country…

From what I understand, to qualify for the Luxembourg national rugby team you only need to have been here a couple of years. Might well be the same for the olympics so you could probably go for any sport.

Aren’t the days of competing at the Olympics a la Eddie the Eagle or Eric the Eel as longas your country sends you long gone now? Don’t you have to get to an olympic standard (or somesuch) now? (I’m guessing some of the team-sports may have poorer standards, but not sure.)

Just need to find a judged sport and some bent judges to say you have reached the required standard then

Just need to find a judged sport and some bent judges to say you have reached the required standard then

One of the Canadian canoeists was competing in a round where both his mother and father were judges on the course according to the BBC. Both of them gave him penalty points!

I saw that thought his mum was the judge and his dad his coach? Could make family mealtime conversation interesting

Not Olympics, but a bunch of Ozzies had a similar idea one alcohol infused night back in 2008, and wanted to represent their country at international level just once in their lives in something, anything!

“In 2008 a group of former University of Western Australia Rugby Club players decided to form a team to send to the World Sudoku Championship in Goa, India despite three of the four team members not having played the game before. Dubbed the Numbats, after a small Australian marsupial, the four worked to gain corporate sponsorship for their endeavour. They eventually raised enough money to cover their trip and to provide distinctive uniforms including sporting blazers that closely resembled those worn by Australia’s team at the 1936 Olympic Games. At the championships the team finished last.” (Wikipedia)

I reckon I’ll go for the team pursuit. I can ride a bike, I can ride on a track, all I need to do is get really, really fit. I’ve got four years, so how hard can it be?

It would be an interesting documentary for someone who has never competed to see how much they could improve and whether they could go from zero to good enough to compete in the Olympics (not talking about conversions from other sports as they have a little headstart)

Yeah track cyclism or BMX. And a very very good doctor.

I’d vote archery, it’s mostly muscle-memory and dealing with pressure rather than requiring dexterous skill or fitness. So spend a couple of months getting coached to get the basics rights then buy a house with a long garden and spend 5 hours a day for a couple of years shooting arrows and a bit of gym work for your core. OK in reality I’m sure it’s pretty difficult (although I did archery at school level with much simpler bows/sights and did OK) but I was pretty surprised how much variation they had on some shots when there wasn’t much wind about to affect them.

I used to race C1 canoe slalom to a fairly high level, and the number of full time c2 pairs is really low, must be under 50. I reckon a committed pair focussing only on c2 for 4 years could do fairly well.

I reckon cycling can’t be that hard, if you really went for it, surely can’t take that long to get fit to a national XC or Cat 1 standard, a few dedicated people seem to get from nothing to Pro in a year (guy in his 40s at ToQ for example only started in Cat4’s last year), so beyond that it’s just finding that 1% that seperates you from he rest of the pelaton. Get a guiding job (and ride up the hills rather than uplift, meet the guests at the top lift station, etc), that’d get you as much traing as the Pro’s, then spend all your wages on race entries untill you start winning.

It’s got to be easier than trying to pick up an entirely new skill.

Your best bet is to be a woman.

I wonder what the rules are on transgender athletes. Are there any?

Don’t you have to get to an olympic standard (or somesuch) now?

You always did have to – I think that Eddie the Eagle did actually reach the standard, and Eric the Eel was included as part of a wildcard system to allow people from under-developed (in sporting terms) countries to experience the Olympics…

See also the Nigerian sculler this year

See also the Nigerian sculler this yeat

Thing is, he still did it in 8.40, which is no bad time.

You may be better off making up a new country or joining a very new one, like Southern Sudan. Then getting a wildcard entry for it. May be they would let you in for mountain biking if you were from a new third world new country like Southern Sudan.

Right then lads, off we all go to Southern Sudan. I hear the trails are dusty. 🙂

My colleague was theorising about transgender atheletes. A few years ago they set a precendent whereby you have to have had the operation and been on hormone treatment for 2 years. Kind of foiled his bid to win a medal somehow!

Best chance is to relocate to a small country/island and gain citizenship. Might have to wait until 2020 though.

I was a national level player in water polo and chucked it because the hardships involved were not worth it due to Britain not being good enough to send a team to the Olympics. Most idiotic decision i’ve ever made!

To get to that level (GB not Olympics) was actually a fairly straight forward process – obviously i had to be a pretty decent swimmer but of those that were and who played waterpolo i’d estimate there would be a better than 1 in 20 chance of being involved at a national level – might not be a regular but invited to train considered as a reserve etc. That is across the whole of the sport at some clubs with good coaches it would be more like less than 1 in 10. I’m sure this will be similar to other minority sports.

The problem however is that the sports where it is possible to break into the ‘elite’ level in a domestic scene it is also extremely unlikely that you will also be good enough to qualify for the Olympics. A home Olympics is a bit different to normal because the amount of events with automatic (or at least easier) qualification for the hosts is greater.

The Southern Yeti – Member
Pole Vaulting?
A mate of mine was in the top 10 in the country when we were kids… there were only 10 people in his age group.

Hammer throwing was exactly the same. You didn’t have to be brilliant to be an age group international athlete. I know 😉

atlaz – Member
It would be an interesting documentary for someone who has never competed to see how much they could improve and whether they could go from zero to good enough to compete in the Olympics (not talking about conversions from other sports as they have a little headstart)

You should watch Alex Vero’s documentary “Running to the limits”. He tried to do just that.

http://www.theroadtobeijing.co.uk/documentary.htm

On second thoughts you would be better off trying to investigate any links to Singapore you might have. Look how much they pay for a gold medal 😯

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19101429

A cross between mountainbob and sleighbike

http://is.pinkbike.com/photo/2633/pbpic2633285.jpg

It’s interesting to see the popular perception of some sports by those who’ve never done them. I see a couple of suggestions for XC skiing (well one for biathlon including the shooting, but much the same thing). I can only assume those suggesting that don’t realise how much technique is involved in being any good at that – to get anywhere close to being good enough to go to the Olympics you really have to start when you’re a kid. Not at all the sort of thing you can take up as an adult and ever be that good just because you’ve got the right sort of engine – you can get to be close to the top level in Britain, but there’s a huge difference between that and going to the Olympics.