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The hardest sport to be "perfect" at?

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Buzkashi.

Any sport where you drag around a dead goat and beat your opponents with sticks while steering a horse with your mouth looks pretty hard to master.
 

dcamp29

Monkey
Feb 14, 2004
589
63
Colorado
soccer. it has the largest talent pool of any sport in the world. poor kids in africa who have never had a chance to ride a DH bike or drive an F1 car can still kick a ball of grass around in a dirt field. the ones who make it to the big leauges are truly gifted athletes. Think about how terrible we would look if real athletes started riding downhill.
 

Ian F

Turbo Monkey
Sep 8, 2001
1,016
0
Philadelphia area
Definitely an amusing thread... I can think of a few bits of info...

In baseball, if you can hit a little white ball in such a way that 9 other people can't catch it before it hits the ground... and can do this consistently say maybe... 33% of the time... someone will pay you millions of dollars for your skills.

DH vs. MX... I just remember Mt Snow in 2000... My second year racing Expert (first year full time)... it was the second year of the current course configuration (Yard Sale)... Many of us were still trying to figure this course out (I never did...)... End of the race, the guy who won 30-34 class did so by a large margin (about 20 seconds IIRC)... It was his first DH race... EVER... on a borrowed bike (Avy Cortina)... Who was he? Doug Henry. The only conclusion I can come to is MX is MUCH harder than DH...
 

j-posch

Monkey
Jun 25, 2007
122
0
Definitely an amusing thread... I can think of a few bits of info...

In baseball, if you can hit a little white ball in such a way that 9 other people can't catch it before it hits the ground... and can do this consistently say maybe... 33% of the time... someone will pay you millions of dollars for your skills.

DH vs. MX... I just remember Mt Snow in 2000... My second year racing Expert (first year full time)... it was the second year of the current course configuration (Yard Sale)... Many of us were still trying to figure this course out (I never did...)... End of the race, the guy who won 30-34 class did so by a large margin (about 20 seconds IIRC)... It was his first DH race... EVER... on a borrowed bike (Avy Cortina)... Who was he? Doug Henry. The only conclusion I can come to is MX is MUCH harder than DH...
Thats because you are americans and you suck at downhill. Your best downhiller "riffle" gets beat by our women at world cups. Go race in a country that is actually good and results like that don't happen, 20 secs winning margin in expert category, thats a joke!
 

norcalbiker

Chimp
Jul 15, 2007
61
0
Skateboarding...I mean come on. It's impossible to do what they do, yet, somehow, it's achieved. The cost, the fear factor, the absolute insane determination it takes to learn the most basic trick. There are no "naturals" in skateboarding. Nobody just picks up a board and can do it. Your punishing yourself all the time, even if you do land a trick. I did a physics thesis on grinding a round handrail down ten stairs with a mild angle to it and perfect conditions, ie. runway, landing, weather, setup etc. the chances were over a million to one, yet guys do it all day everyday in the most insane conditions with cracks before and after the rail, kinks in the rail and security sweating you all the time. Just to be able to do your "job" you have to be a criminal. Skate parks help you train but you will NEVER see a skaters video part(which is how they are judged by their peers and fans) filmed entirely in skateparks. The creativity, the endless possibilities of tricks and combinations plus different spots, styles and the ability to do tricks either way-left foot forward or right foot forward is so mind boggling it has it's own language and culture. Plus what Danny Way and Bob Burnquist have taken skating to with the mega ramps and jumping the great wall of china, jumping out of helicopters, you have no idea how insane that is. Driving a car compares to that? Golf? You are out of your mind. No way. Skateboarding hands down. I didn't even scratch the surface considering variables for difficulty and technical ability. Skateboarding rules all sports.

I dont agree at all. There is no hardest sport. Hockey, Golf, Dh, skating, ski racing, shotput, Decathlaon. There is no hardest sport to be perfect in. Look at all the disciplines of skating too-vert,street,park. You cant do them all and be the best.
 
i have been golfing, surfing and skating essentially my whole life. I started downhilling sometime in 2005 and it has definitley been a fun challenge.

each of the sports has its own set of challenges unique to it and make it addicting.

Surfing:
you have to be able to judge the way the wave is going to break from the get-go in order to take the best line and hit it in the best possible spots. you have to know exactly where your feet are relative to the deck and tail in order to pull off different tricks or drive down the line. this is in my opinion the most challenging part. even having your foot slightly away from the sweet-spot for the particular maneuver will drastically affect how you are able to turn and control the board, and how you are able to recover from it and keep your speed.
a slight misjudgment of the wave when you are taking off or a slight misjudgment of when to hit the lip will ruin the entire wave, and in competitive surfing, there is usually a 15 wave maximum per competitor per heat, so obviously every wave counts and there is little room for misjudged waves.
another thing is that surfing all depends on conditions, swell, wind, tide, sandbar or reef formations among others and knowing and understanding how different waves break in different setups of these conditions is critical.
knowledge of the ocean, experience and judgment are what makes a surfer.
i've been in only a few surf competitions and it always makes me laugh when i review video of myself compared to the other competitors out there... i grew up in and around the ocean and i have surfed many different spots in every condition imaginable. rain, shine, waterspouts or offshores, i'm out there.
what makes me laugh is that i know the surfing history of most of the people that i compete against and i know that they know how to ride the board, but they havent developed much judgment of the waves and the ocean to tell beforehand when a set is coming, so when i watch video of all of us sitting out there in a heat, i always see myself start to paddle further out for a set long before everyone else, and this usually pays off for me. (unless the waves sucked fat nuts like my last comp.)
anyways, i was just rambling about myself right there, in no way am i saying i'm perfect because i know very well i'm not, but my point is that i personally would say that surfing is the hardest sport to become perfect at due to how literally every aspect of it other than the rider on the board pretty much depends on pure chance, and to become perfect at it, one needs to know how to judge these situations and how to react best to make the ride/ session to its fullest.


golf is also very challenging, ive been playing for 9 years and still have yet to break 80! 84 is my best ever!
it truly takes extreme precision, knowledge of the club, surface, conditions, even the ball itself!
i love golf but at the same time i hate it, anyone who likes golf knows what i'm talking about. that one good shot will ALWAYS draw you back into the game, but if you royally suck like myself, that one shot confidence boost 90% of the time only lasts you about the rest of the hole! hahaha

skating, well, skating hasnt ever really been hard for me, but at the same time, i'm not doing the insane flip-spin-crooked grind tricks like most; i grew up skating pools with my dad and pool skating has always correlated to my surfing, which makes it alot easier. its mostly all carves, slashes and flow for me but the flow is the hardest part to get down. as with surfing and really every other sport, tou have to know the equipment, lines and movements to keep up your flow.

Downhilling has definitley been the biggest challenge to me because i always pay attention to multitudes of workings at once, and i need to learn to keep myself from being distracted by these things because the stress affects my flow and judgment.
it is definitley a sport that you can become close to perfect in certain aspects, but will almost always lack in others(for me at least).
with pre-runs and warmup runs, if you take into account the lines, you can usually get a good mindset of what you need to do -i.e.- where to put on the brakes, how hard, how to be positioned, where to pick up the nose or where to flick out the rear, etc. etc.

all sports are hard, some come naturally some dont, but holy crap are they FUN!!!! i will always love them.

-out
 

dh gangster

Monkey
Jul 31, 2006
366
0
P en Doubleyou
There was a study done that found the sports that took the most overall aerobic ability (which sports required the most air intake) and the top two sports were 1. Soccer and 2. Motocross. Now I'm not sure about where downhill ended up but, I play soccer myself for training and also race motocross as well and a 40 minute moto +2 laps or 90 minutes of proper soccer is quite the ass whooping. Not to say that 5 minute all out controlled rampage down the side of the hill we do is not as hard, its just that after about half an hour or so after your run, your pretty much fine. As for after a Moto or a Soccer game it takes quite while for you to recover back to full strength becuase of the overall amount of exertion over a longer period of time.
The other thing about downhill is a lot of it is mental, you have to have confidence and focus, which an established athlete (like doug henry) most likely already has.
 

Heath Sherratt

Turbo Monkey
Jun 17, 2004
1,871
0
In a healthy tension
Skateboarding is the 37th toughest sport according to ESPN

But i agree out of the "extreme" sports, It has some of if not THE hardest technical skills to master, hell even learning them to get them down 1/50th of the time is still crazy hard. I respect the wood pushers.
Right, cuz football is sooo hard. Wow. I can play basketball or Football with professional players and still stay in the game. That's a crock. What do they consider skateboarding? Riding it down the street? Then I would agree with them, unless you're in San Fransisco and going over 40 on a daily basis, then I would say they were wrong. Wackadoo. I guarantee you could take ANY skater and he would be able to shoot hoop within a year, and I mean well/competitively. It would be a rare find to get a professional football player or b-ball player to get anything done on a skateboard in a year. I am an aquaintance of Bobby "Action" Jackson, and he is one of the most fit, powerful players out there and he won't mess with a skateboard-at all. Why do you think that is?
 

Ian Collins

Turbo Monkey
Oct 4, 2001
1,428
0
Pacific Beach, San Diego, CA
surfing and moto....surfing=hardest water sport and moto=hardest land sport



in my oh so humble opinion

edit:saw the fiveten post.......rock climbing is nuts.......shoot, dh ski racing is nuts......f1 is nuts.....it's all nuts!
 

.Pit Steelers.

Nostradumbass
Jun 18, 2006
1,429
0
Hawaii
Right, cuz football is sooo hard. Wow. I can play basketball or Football with professional players and still stay in the game. That's a crock. What do they consider skateboarding? Riding it down the street? Then I would agree with them, unless you're in San Fransisco and going over 40 on a daily basis, then I would say they were wrong. Wackadoo. I guarantee you could take ANY skater and he would be able to shoot hoop within a year, and I mean well/competitively. It would be a rare find to get a professional football player or b-ball player to get anything done on a skateboard in a year. I am an aquaintance of Bobby "Action" Jackson, and he is one of the most fit, powerful players out there and he won't mess with a skateboard-at all. Why do you think that is?

So your saying you could get an average person such as a surfer or skater to try and run through someone like P Willie for example (Patrick Willis) I think not. Also B-Ball, how tall are you 5'10, 5'11 have fun. And i agree as surfing beging one of the hardest sports to master. I mean you could always grab a long board and paddle into small waves that are mostly white water. Thats not to hard, but riding a short board, gun or something that is going to be a alot harder.
 

John P.

Turbo Monkey
Sep 24, 2001
1,170
0
Golden, CO
DH vs. MX... I just remember Mt Snow in 2000... My second year racing Expert (first year full time)... it was the second year of the current course configuration (Yard Sale)... Many of us were still trying to figure this course out (I never did...)... End of the race, the guy who won 30-34 class did so by a large margin (about 20 seconds IIRC)... It was his first DH race... EVER... on a borrowed bike (Avy Cortina)... Who was he? Doug Henry. The only conclusion I can come to is MX is MUCH harder than DH...
It was actually '01, and his margin was about 14 seconds.
http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?year=2001&id=18&info_id=176

The craziest thing I remember about him riding was that he was doing it in hiking boots and using pedals with clips and straps!
 

seth505

Monkey
Jun 9, 2006
519
0
CA
It was actually '01, and his margin was about 14 seconds.
http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?year=2001&id=18&info_id=176

The craziest thing I remember about him riding was that he was doing it in hiking boots and using pedals with clips and straps!
aha, I remember that..it was awesome. He had the ****tiest pedals with toe clips! Having done both sports I am going to say mx is harder as well...Around the time I was riding novice/amateur motocross, I got into dh racing when I went away to college and easily started at expert level and then semi pro a few years into the sport. Getting to expert level mx is really tough IMO.
 

A.P

Monkey
Nov 21, 2005
423
0
boston
I remember reading a study that said Soccer was the most physically demanding sport, with motocross second behind it.

I don't know what they were using as a guideline for physically demanding, but I dont see how soccer is more physically demanding then moto. Soccer requires a great deal of sprinting, leg power and agility, but there is considerable downtime where you are either motionless or walking while the game is playing.

I read a report where they averaged the heart rates of the top riders during a moto....they went up to around 190bpm and stayed there, redlined at maximum for 35 minutes straight. You add this with the incredible core and upper body strength needed to muscle a 200lb bike while cross rutted at 40mph, and the thighs to withstand whoops , landings and impacts combined with the mental clarity and coordination to keep yourself upright. Im not even going to begin imagining doing all this in a huge field people. I honestly fail to see how soccer is more demanding.
 

gemini2k

Turbo Monkey
Jul 31, 2005
3,526
117
San Francisco
I don't know what they were using as a guideline for physically demanding, but I dont see how soccer is more physically demanding then moto. Soccer requires a great deal of sprinting, leg power and agility, but there is considerable downtime where you are either motionless or walking while the game is playing.
I dunno what kind of soccer you watch.....and i'm no soccer fan.....but dood, top soccer pros don't stand around.....ever. According to THIS random website, they avergae around 170 BPM.......FOR 90 MINUTES, not 30 or something.




http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061006191419AAFkmw3

But anyways, in terms of total power output, nothing compares to the TOUR DE FRANCE man. Come on. Its like running a half marathon+, everyday, in 90+ degree heat.....at high altituide.....for 3 weeks straight. Good luck with that. I bet with minimal training I could at least make a enough laps around a moto track to constitute a race. It would take me YEARS of training to make it half the way up L'alpe Duez, at ANY pace.
 

A.P

Monkey
Nov 21, 2005
423
0
boston
I dunno what kind of soccer you watch.....and i'm no soccer fan.....but dood, top soccer pros don't stand around.....ever.
I didn't say stand around, as in stand around and do nothing. Watch a soccer game from a stadium perspective. From a purely physical standpoint, there is a real amount of downtime in which there isn't any exertion. That does not mean that they arent doing anything... waiting for a pass, being open, setting up for a play or whatever. Conversely, there are times of constant maximum effort. The talent pool in soccer is so huge that the top players really are brilliant, dont get me wrong.


I agree with the tour, if you are talking aerobic fitness. But its kind of comparing apples to oranges. While Ricky Carmicheal would get dropped on L'alpe Duez, just imagine Rasmussen at 40mph through braking bumps on a bike twice his weight:



You are comparing vastly different body types, fitness, etc. There is no one answer.
 

LeRoy

Monkey
Apr 11, 2002
375
0
Wellington - NZ
I didn't say stand around, as in stand around and do nothing. Watch a soccer game from a stadium perspective. From a purely physical standpoint, there is a real amount of downtime in which there isn't any exertion. That does not mean that they arent doing anything... waiting for a pass, being open, setting up for a play or whatever. Conversely, there are times of constant maximum effort. The talent pool in soccer is so huge that the top players really are brilliant, dont get me wrong.


I agree with the tour, if you are talking aerobic fitness. But its kind of comparing apples to oranges. While Ricky Carmicheal would get dropped on L'alpe Duez, just imagine Rasmussen at 40mph through braking bumps on a bike twice his weight:



You are comparing vastly different body types, fitness, etc. There is no one answer.
I just threw up in my mouth.
 

RATM

Monkey
Aug 5, 2004
210
0
Washington DC area
The top sport to be perfect just about every single time to win is probably downhill skiing. Those guys are flat out their whole run, and mistakes can end thier career.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
5,918
borcester rhymes
well, in order to play soccer at the top level, you have to know how to act, even if it's very poorly...so I guess that's pretty demanding.

So many whiners in that sport, even at the top level. Watching people roll on the ground for no reason gets old really quickly.
 

SLanD3r

Chimp
Apr 6, 2006
37
0
As someone stated earlier (think it was kidwoo?) there are not many sports if any where perfection can even be achieved. Taking this into consideration most sports are extremely difficult, since afterall its an ongoing attempt to achieve the unachievable goal of perfection.

The # of variables are not as important of a factor in my opinion. Take boxing and mma for example, just because there are less variables in boxing than mma doesn't make it easier or harder. When you reduce the # of variables needed for a sport, the reduced # of skillsets will be developed to a higher state of precision; however the same unattainable goal of perfection still exists.

A good example is in autosports: on-road vs off-road. In on road racing there are less variables involved (in terms of terrain variability), but if you take a look in karting (breeding ground for f1 drivers), there was one world championship race I watched where approx. 60 drivers qualified within a 0.2 second spread (some were only thousandths of a second apart).

Generally you don't see margins that close in off-road due to factors inherent within the sport. Does that make it easier or harder? I wouldn't think so.

Decrease the # of variables and the amount of required precision increases and now you have a sport where the top 60 are within a 0.2 second window.

So with all this in mind, for me the main factors i consider in learning curve difficulty comes down to repercussions for screwing up and the toll the sport takes on your body.

Low-risk sports I pick up much quicker than high-risk sports such as DH. Reason being I can practice techniques such as my tennis stroke constantly with little regard to safety, but trying to practice a sport where your self preservation instincts are constantly in conflict with your goals is a whole other ball game.

---------------------------------------------------
Regarding the statement of kimi raikkonen achieving 7th in his 1st race with a negative connotation. That is actually an amazing feat, to score points in your first F1 race. Take into consideration that he spent barely any time in the lower formulas (karting to formula renault straight to f1, skipping f3, f3000 etc...) makes it even more incredible.

Also in F1, unless you have a competitive ride you don't have much of a chance of doing well; exceptions exist of course. Kimi first drove for Sauber which at that time was definitely not one of the top teams (although they snagged 2nd in constructors this year).
 

N I C K

Chimp
Jun 12, 2005
99
0
Sunapee, NH
I was thinking about this last night, downhilling's pretty hardcore I reckon. Let's start with another popular sport that involves racing: car racing on a track.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the guys who do that are unskilled, but it's got to be a lot "easier" to learn the skills required to do a perfect lap. All you really have to do is push some pedals, turn a wheel, and pick the right lines. It might be hard to perfect this, but there's not much else to it.
There is much much much much more to car racing, then pushing some pedals and turning a wheel. And running a perfect lap is damn near impossible. You really have absolutely no room to say that racing is "easy" until you have climbed behind the wheel of one of those cars and taken a lap.

Im not saying that downhill racing is easy, and pro level riders require a ton of skill and experience to even think about competing in a world cup race. But i know this, car racing is not easy, and you certainly can not classify any sport into difficulty, unless you have competed in every sport your comparing.
 

TheInedibleHulk

Turbo Monkey
May 26, 2004
1,886
0
Colorado
Downhilling is a sport that encompasses alot of different variables. Bike handling skill, poise, fitness, balls, all play roles. If more people did it, you would need all of these to be a competitive pro. Since the level of competition is so weak, you can get away with just having one or two. I really ballsy guy with decent bike handling and good pain tolerance can alright even in relatively poor shape. Someone with phenomenal fitness will be ahead of most of the pack and may not have to take as many risks to get the same time. Sure Sam Hill and Greg Minaar have all of these, but other than the 20-30 guys we've all heard of, most pros dont. In a sport like motocross, which has the same basic set of requirements but far more compeition, you have to be solid in all areas, and you might still not be able to win because some people just seem to be superhuman.

Conclusion- Downhill could be a super hard sport, but because so few people do it and most are so bad at it, schmucks like me can get a pro liscense.
 

Ian F

Turbo Monkey
Sep 8, 2001
1,016
0
Philadelphia area
It was actually '01, and his margin was about 14 seconds.
http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?year=2001&id=18&info_id=176

The craziest thing I remember about him riding was that he was doing it in hiking boots and using pedals with clips and straps!

Yeah, I forgot about the hiking boots and toe-clips...

And to add more perspective, his time would have been top-5 in semi-pro.

Couldn't remember which year... That was a bad race for me... haven't been back to Mt Snow since... doubt I ever will... at least not the DH... man, I hated that course... :disgust1:
 

slothy

Monkey
Sep 21, 2007
259
0
Ireland
I think skateboarding is the most difficult thing to get good at.... its easy enough to skateboard but getting good,is soooo hard.
 

Summit

Monkey
Sep 23, 2001
369
0
here 'n there
Sports a lot harder than DH:

-Skiing (Much harder to achieve expert level and much higher speeds/gnarlier obstables - including much higher risk of death and dismemberment, although the little crashes don't hurt as much.)

Surfing - Just hard as hell. Plus the riding medium (waves) come up and try to kill you.

Golf - Not so much a sport as a game, but insanely hard to get good at.

probably Skateboarding...although I don't really skate aside from my hippy longboards ;)

Mountain biking is still really tough, and really fun.
 

wydopen

Turbo Monkey
Jan 16, 2005
1,229
60
805
stand-up SURF riding....its not easy ;)








actually i rode my downhill bike for the first time in a year the other day..now that seems hard too..lol

its also alot more work than tightening a couple allen bolts :)
no such thing as perfect though