I haven't watched a game of shinty, so it may well be up there, but I cant think of a sport that is tougher physically, faster, requiring more technical skill and speed of thought than a game of hurley between two quality teams.

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…

No its not but when I lived in Sheffield at Uni I knew lots of the better English mountaineers and they were essentially underperforming rock climbers. You could never take 6 months off from sport climbing get back to it and be pushing grades forward yet that is what happens every year in the mountains.

In fact, any sport where people can take time off and then be back at the top with a bit of training has to be discounted IMO ie boxing

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

See my comment above about it not being difficult to plod along, but a whole world different to be actually XC skiing properly with proper weight transfer etc. If you're making comments like that you've almost certainly not actually had much in the way of XC skiing technique.

Given biathlon involves skate style skiing, then I'd suggest that also puts it well up there as something difficult just to do rather than to compete at a high level. I doubt any of the XC skiing naysayers have ever tried skating up a hill – I reckon I'd struggle to maintain momentum up some of the hills they go up.

lookma, after cleaning up in the fell races you after a bigger challenge?
you forgot to ad plastering your own house 😉

Motorcycling, snowboarding, skiing, none of it got sh1t on aggressive urban offroad driving:

No its not but when I lived in Sheffield at Uni I knew lots of the better English mountaineers

I said top of game not just drunk climbers who occasionally visit the alps 😉 (I have some very good Drunk Climber/Mountaineer friends)

Rugby's got to be up there.

said top of game not just drunk climbers who occasionally visit the alps

Andy cave, Al rouse, Jo Simpson?

Al Rouse, under perfoming rock climber, I done think so.

Understand the point you are trying to make though.

aracer well I've done a bit on winter deployments in Norway with 3 Commando brigade.
It's simply not that involved. I'm not saying it's easy but it's not in contention.
Boxing is as is rugby as there are many facets. The hardest sport should include speed, CV fitness, power, skill, intelligence and courage.

'Joe Simpson': Depends if you mean Mountaineers that consistently make bad calls and scrape through with their lives 🙂

I am kidding btw….

The hardest sport should include speed, CV fitness, power, skill, intelligence and courage.

Agreed.

backhander – Member
aracer well I've done a bit on winter deployments in Norway with 3 Commando brigade.
It's simply not that involved. I'm not saying it's easy but it's not in contention.
Boxing is as is rugby as there are many facets. The hardest sport should include speed, CV fitness, power, skill, intelligence and courage.

at last somebody talking sense!

Rugby, hard yes but not flat out all the time
Footie as above
climbing as above
martial arts as above
shi(n)tty as above

i'm talking max heart rate, breathing through every orific, one wrong step and its gonna hurt and for longer than a quick burst… 😈

I suspect that the TdF is the toughest event though there are those bike races that are about how far within a time limit so people do that with 1 hour sleep in 24 hours over so many days.

Toughest training I did was martial arts and judo is tougher than karate – I suspect wrestling is the toughest of them all; not sure which type but Antonio Inoki was a bit special.

Personally I think stamina should be less of a consideration than power, technique and skill. It is much easier to develop stamina than the others.

"The hardest sport should include speed, CV fitness, power, skill, intelligence and courage" back to Gymnastics then!

I suspect that the TdF is the toughest event though there are those bike races that are about how far within a time limit so people do that with 1 hour sleep in 24 hours over so many days.

Well adventure races have been mentioned – I've done less than an hour a day of sleep in those. I was dismissing those on the basis that it wasn't that difficult to win an international level event, as I'd managed that 😉

Except CV fitness and courage. And perhaps intelligence. Otherwise gymnastics would be right up there.
Riding a bicycle along a road requires minimal courage (unless in london). It's physically immense though, I agree. Same with AR.

"Except CV fitness and courage. And perhaps intelligence. Otherwise gymnastics would be right up there"

Dont tell me theres no courage required for those massive dismounts.
The power endurance for the rings or parallel bars must pretty immense
The intelligence comes during the training/preperation rather than during the competition.

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

I seem to remember a newspaper article from years ago that found footie players to be fitter (CV) than ballet dancers. (No link sorry..)

AARGHHHHHHHHH! yes ballet dancers are fit, so are cyclists but when they are competeing/performing ARE they flat out/balls to the wall/full on for hours on end? NO!

The fittest athlete is the one with the best VO2 thing right? Or heart rate? Or something else I can measure?!

You can't just take out Endurance. To have Endurance AND all the other things is the point. TdF is very much a team sport so (not saying its not hard though). Other cycling disciplines for sure…Track pursuits? XC Racing (those top end guys shift dh!)

'speed, CV fitness, power, skill, intelligence and courage'

Seriously. Marathon DH or Enduro (proper not marathon stuff) has it all.

intelligence should be defined as tactics etc I guess

Its not actually V02max which defines it. Its lactate threshold relative to high V02max I think.

RHSno2 has a point I think, certainly courage which is often difficult to marry with very physical sports.
The intelligence is choosing your line maybe?

mixed martial arts (ufc) these guys are cardio freaks and have to learn 3 or 4 skill sets e.g. jui jitsu, wrestling, boxing, thai boxing kick boxing ec etc

loftmonkey beat me too it! … MMA without a shadow of a doubt, ive done most things over the years and NOWT comes close.

RAAM finishers end of 🙄

I think the Wolf Raping has it, especially if it is a 24 hour Wolf Rapathon.

(Remind me not to go outdoors with anyone named Munro)

Cycling? Please.
Yes it's very physical, but there's hardly any skill required to ride a road bike.
Tactics, yes.
Skill, NO.

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

Made me laugh 🙂

TBH the punter who drives to the beach and does this isn't surfing – paddling out and sitting on your board is not surfing. To get to a good standard of surfing uusually requires lots and lots of practice because skill wise its a difficult sport and some people never progress beyond a certain point because they simply haven't got the balance, strength, power and coordination to do so. Its also surprisingly hard aerobically – to paddle out in anything over a head height swell is usually beyond most people. If you then factor in catching a wave and riding it back to near the beach and then paddling back again and repeating for 2-3 hours. then you can see that its a very good workout.

Of the other sports I've taken part in and are mentioned, I'd say gymnastics isn't particularly hard aerobically, but strength (to weight ratio) and skill levels are way up there – eg how many people on here can do a simple move such as a back somersault or a press to handstand?
Judo is a very skillful art, but unfortunately less so when it comes to the sport version, and is physically very tough particularly in training.

IMHO windsurfing is nowhere near as difficult as surfing skillwise but that may be because I tried windsurfing after I'd been surfing for about 7/8 years 🙂

Not read the whole thread, but I reckon the track records must be horrendous. They reckon Obree was actually breathing out a fine mist of blood like a racehorse does.

Spending a day with my parents, honestly, you wouldn't believe what hard work that can be, I too have been known to spit a fine mist of blood.

how about something like this. http://www.patagonianexpeditionrace.com/en/about_race.php

This means of trekking, climbing and related rope work, kayaking, mountain biking, and backcountry navigation.

I guess a fair amount of fitness inc CV is needed.

everyone seems to have overlooked two sports which are only popular to young people because of the level of personal hardness required when participating… adults simply do not have the stamina or the fearlessness required.. kisschase and hopscotch

debate finished
thankyou and goodnight

Some new ones I came up with yesterday:
Vert skateboarding for skill and committment and you need to be pretty good in order to do anything at all.
Atlas balls for strength, speed and big lads going into oxygen debt.

I think it has to be an individual sport because in team sports there is always somewhere to hide.

RAAM finishers end of

Seriously? Have you seen Jim Rees?

ianv – street skating is much tougher than vert skating IMO!

Personally I think it's boxing, they train like nuts before a fight, pushing their fitness levels to an extent that is unsustainable in the long term. They need amazing levels of co-ordination, speed, power, couragre and mental toughness.

I think this is also supported by numerous scientific studies.

For me adventure racing – I was ill for a month after the adrenalin rush. That said, there were four of the GB Biathlete's in my Battery and they were absolutley phenomenal athletes, lungs on legs.