yeah but the folk that do pull out of these crazy long/hard enduro races before the end get the chance to sulk over it all and put their feet up fairly quickly.

you chicken out of surfing like the guy above, you arent going home.Its those sports with those moments that make those kind of sports the hardest in my eyes.

wheres stuartie c, i can see him saying climbing would be one of his hardest sports. another sport you cant chicken out of and put the kettle on whenever you feel like chickening out.

pass me a tissue, my eye has gone a bit drippy..

http://magicseaweed.com/photoLab/viewPhoto.php?photoId=1847

Well if we're talking pure balls,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMKJl8Tn5Dk

I'm going to throw another contender into the ring here: track cycling. Unlike road/crit racing there's no rest, you can't just freewheel for a bit. The enduro side of it (Madison, points race etc) requires incredible concentration, speed, skill, tactics and stamina. OK so the longest races are usually only about 25 miles but that's 50-60 mins, no food or water, the G-forces as you go through the bends at speed can be surprisingly high and it really takes it out of you!

yeah but the folk that do pull out of these crazy long/hard enduro races before the end get the chance to sulk over it all and put their feet up fairly quickly.

Does that include all the bikers* that have died doing The Dakar?

*One who was a friend of mine. 😐

In terms of endurance type stuff i think Biathlon is right up there. Adventure Racing I would say as well, 145hrs ish with about 6 hours sleep and covering about 990km needs a bit of puff. Done them and done an Ironman as well. I'd do the AR over an Ironman any day because my brain almost fell out on the Ironman !

Hardest in my book must be the rock/mountain climbing without any ropes

Not sure if its bravery or madness, one slip and you die

Pro boxing anybody?

muff diving

The toughest sports to do well in are probably footie and 100m sprinting. Virtually everyone has tried these out and would have probably carried on if they were any good.

If you are asking which event is the toughest to complete then the RAAM, atlantic rowing races and the iditbike 1100 mile event must be up there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfPYVYc0U3M

there are a handful of people on the planet capable of this. 1.40 onwards is just insane….

I seriously think it's road biking – 6 odd hours of pedalling at fairly close to threshold. tactics, downhilling @ 70mph, mental toughness.

That said, at my level of road biking it's none of these things 🙂

another 'tough' sport is solo yacht racing (vendee globe etc). you've got to be a tough, tough bastard to be able to cope, both physically (cold, infection, getting battered by various bits of the boat) and definately metally (isolation, knowing if anything goes wrong, there are some locations where you know you'll never be found, self belief, meteorology, tactics, sailing skill)

out of sports making my 'f*ck that' list Solo RTW yachting is my number 1.

Has to be the 12 hour wankathon. I was puffing dust after the last one I did

I seriously think it's road biking – 6 odd hours of pedalling at fairly close to threshold. tactics, downhilling @ 70mph,

Well apart from the fact they don't actually do either of those things.

Given how I now feel after training tonight, I think martial arts has to be up there somewhere!

Darts. Being able to be that accurate after 10 pints of lager requires, skill and stamina.

Not seen it mentioned yet, so…

…ballet
endurance, power, precision

The skill in shooting in Biathlon is kind of debatable because once you've learned to shoot, surely it comes down to having the fitness not to be a jibbering wreck when it comes to steadying your aim…

What you, and probably everybody else on here is missing is that the shooting bit is far from the only skill involved in biathlon. I'd guess that nobody has actually done xc skiing at a performance/racing level, as whilst it's not that technically difficult to plod along, it's an extremely technical sport to compete in, with a lot of very subtle coordination of all 4 limbs doing different things with critical split second timing of the different phases. Almost certainly the highest skill level of any human powered sport which is about covering the most distance in the least time. I know somebody who's converted from rowing to xc ski racing, and he certainly reckons the skill levels are far higher – meanwhile I have been a fairly high level kayak racer (something which is also more technical than rowing – ask James Cracknell) and now compete at a very low level in xc skiing, and the skill levels are a world apart.

I throw in Enduro DH. Stage races etc. In terms of intense effort (15-30 mins repeatedly over a day) along with skills I don't think I have done anything as hard. You can be strong in the morning and fade like daisy in the afternoon and crash your brains out. Then you do it the next day.

Any thing that sits in this cat must have a 'no where to hide' factor i.e. you can't cruise and need coordination at all times

Biathlon must be the one.

6 day track racing. the old fashioned way where one of the team of 2 had to be on the track at all times.

Maybe it is just me, but I reckon that sustained effort sports like cycling time trials, rowing etc. are always going to be easier than sports where the effort is on/off. I play unicycle hockey once a week for 1 hour 45, and that knackers me out way more than riding road bikes hard for the same time – 70% of the time you are going at absolutely 100% sprinting pace, and 30% of the time you are hanging around for a pass. It is like doing interval training solidly for almost 2 hours, or doing 50 100m sprints with short gaps between. I reckon pro-level football must be bloody hard for the same reason.

Obviously there are different types of fitness though – the ultra long endurance fitness versus sprinting type fitness. I guess team sports kind of come somewhere in between the two, which is what I find hard.

Joe

Dinghy sailing

Ridiculous levels of skill
The taktics are mentaly draining
There's a very complicated rule book to follow
And a lot of races are run back to back, so you could be flat out for anything upto 5 hours.

And for an idea of the strength involved, hook the tips of your toes under your desk with your chair suppourting your legs, the edge of it in cantact about 1/3 to 1/2 way up your upper leg. Now hold that position lying completely flat for 20 minutes, whilst intermittently doing violent sit-ups (its called torquing, the sailing equivalent of pumping through waves), now hold a 20kg dumbell in both hands and box.

20 minutes of that is a fair aproximation of a lap in moderately windy conditions, and you've not even had to think about taktics or setting the sails yet.

I think people should try judo at competition level… Compare to that I find moutain biking to be a pita…

Really do not think mountaineering comes near, most big mountain outes are technically easy and its only the cold and the altitude that makes it hard.

Very hard sport climbing al a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lr_5m443WI or hard onsighting might get a shout nowadays but NOT mountaineering.

When I think back, the most complete all round athletes I have known were gymnasts.

Total bollocks.
The skill required just to stay alive, the fitness to absorb sufficient oxygen at altitudes and the mental toughness to go on is super human. Many people die on mountains due to how challenging it is.
Compared to flipping along in a nice warm gym with a sprung floor….

Compared to flipping along in a nice warm gym with a sprung floor….

Which is just what all the other sports being mentioned are like 🙄

If the number of people dying whilst doing a sport is the criterion then base jumping trumps mountaineering.

Meanwhile it might require fitness to absorb oxygen at altitude, but it bears little relation to fitness needed for doing other things at lower altitudes – it's more nature than nurture, with the ability ultimately being gained simply by spending time at altitude rather than anything more demanding.

The whole mountaineering argument is rather shot down by the list of Everest summiteers.

I find surfing the most technically difficult by a long way (harder than golf for me) – it also requires some stamina as well as ability to relax and hold your breath when it gets big. Its way more difficult than windsurfing and way way more difficult than kite surfing (the wind is always there).

Judo was pretty hard work but maybe boxing tops it (never done it).

The highest VO2 max has been found in cross country skiers.

Gymnastics must be hard as well as decathlon, but Brian Jacks from superstars could kick everyone's arse and he was judokan.

well original post is a bit diff from title hard physical v hard v scarey
my vote for hard v scarey is white water canoe

why – well you can't stop and the instant decision is what makes it

read the stuff above and in mountains you can pick and choose though the weather is way out of control, big surf maybe close to big rivers

hard physical then ironman must be in there

I am not buying mountaineering as the toughest. Done a bit of mountaineering and its not as tough as mountainbiking at my mediocre level. My dad climbed at himalaya at 18000 ft at 65 with only one and a half lungs and 2 stone overweight. I have been up to 16000 ft or so peaks and passes.

For sure soloing on the very high mountains is hard but it more mental than physical IMO. Sport climbing might be up there as requiring a high level of fitness and skill

More dangerous than many sports / pastimes tho. 30 a year die on the mountains in Scotland each year.

Alot of high end martial artists are extremely fit, a few years ago ( too many to say real number) I used to do Judo at a high competative lvl, and the team that went to one of the commonwealth games got a visit from the overall english team coach, who basically tore into the judo squad coach for over working the players so close to competition………..What he didn't know until it was pointed out was that they regime they were doing as a 'tick along', He was pretty perturbed as what he saw was harder training than most serious athletes ever undertake. We walked away from that commonwealth with 14 of the 16 gold medals available in that tournament

Oh and by the way the considered fittest people in the world arn't even sports people, its ballet dancers……..

You have to look at the high end sports people not 'average practicioners (sp?)'. So for mountaineering,its not those that have summited Everest etc…

Ski Mountaineering has some players. Greg Hill has gotta be up there.

I'm not buying mountaineering either, or other long time involved pastimes such as round the world yachting. These things just aren't comparable. Mountaineering involves lots of sitting around in camps (I have direct experience). Having done a bit of xc skiing (classic, not skating) I'd say XC skiing or stage road racing such as Tdf. Ski mountaineering at racing level is going to be pretty nuts in terms of a work out. Adventure racing: hmm maybe, but more drawn out for certian ones i.e week long races so again difficult to compare.

By popular opinion alone, on this thread it's plainly xc skiing! And by that I read xc skiing racing on prepared trails.

The whole mountaineering argument is rather shot down by the list of Everest summiteers.

How so?
I didn't find XC skiing any more challenging than XC running. Not massively skillful (more rhythmic) and no risk at all. Uninvolving IMO.

For mental toughness, this must be up there.

have a look from 1.15 onwards, no option to pull out of that i'd say.

Terje Hakonsen, snowboarder.

Motorcycle enduro as already mentioned is shockingly physical, particularly the hare&hounds / GNCC type. Stopping only for fuel over a 3 / 4 hour race is tiring in every way.
Imagine riding downhill mountain bike for that duration….

Every part of your body is strained (almost) & receives some horrible shock loads. As well as the physics of trying to hang on, you're also controlling your throttle with the very same hand – this kills the forearms like nothing else. (expect perhaps the aforementioned wankathon?)

Motocross is also pretty brutal but doesn't last quite so long (just 🙂 40 mins per race) hence it can be ridden in a more aggressive manner.

Don't get me wrong – I have competed in running & canoeing distance events & they are indeed tiring to the point of total exhaustion but offers nothing like the brutality of off-road motorcycling.

freshwater fishing…. or darts

Can't believe nobody has mentioned cross country snow boarding, it makes biathalon look like a walk in the park……

Never Step Out!

You have to look at the high end sports people not 'average practicioners (sp?)'. So for mountaineering,its not those that have summited Everest etc…

I was thinking the opposite way round, not what it takes to reach the top end but what it takes just to become a punter in sport defines it's toughness, otherwise you can make any sport as tough as you like to some extent. Take for instance surfing. I'm sure that surfing is fantastically tough, if you're fanatical about it. But for the average punter a days surfing seems to involve sitting on a beach talking bollocks, having a bit of a paddle and a wobble, going to the surf shop.
The drive back to London is probably the most taxing part 🙂

So you've got decide if your looking for the potentially hardest pastime if you've devote your life to it, or the hardest pastime, based on the hardness just to get to punter level in it.

ok if it's to get average it's defo judo.