Back in elementary school our teacher set up a softball game, boys vs the girls but to help even out the odds (or just make them more interesting) she introduced a handicap for the boys: she had us switch batting position, right handers batting lefthanded and vise versa, and this got me wondering:
Has anyone ever attempted to organize a sports competition with olympic-style events except to have the athletes swap their disciplines? Say have the runners take a crack at swimming, the swimmers try running, Volleyball players Badminton, gymnists try wrestling, etc? See how well people conditioned for one sport would do in another? Within reason of course. Nothing dangerous like having shooters try to pole vault or weightlifters try their hands at equestrian
Some athletes have swapped disciplines. The Mens 30 Meter Platform gold medalist used to be a world champion in Trampoline before he switched to diving. A lot of the water polo players used to be swimmers. Misty May used to play indoor volleyball before switching to beach volleyball. The US runner in the women’s 1500 meter race used to compete as an Irish dancer.
This sounds like the kind of thing that Japanese variety shows do all the time.
The one that sticks in my mind was a 4x100 relay between four top sprinters and four tea ceremony masters - each wearing their standard outfits (runners in shorts and spikes, tea guys in kimonos and sandals).
The catch was that each participant had to sit in a kneeling position for a full hour, getting up only when they received the baton. The sprinters each got up, took two steps (if they were lucky), then promptly face-planted into the track because their legs were paralyzed. The tea ceremony masters each creaked on up, were able to get jogging within ten seconds or so, and won the race.
Another show sometime after either the Sydney or Athens Olympics put Ian Thorpe (who made some huge money doing ads here, if Phelps is smart he’ll do the same) in a 400m swimming race against 8 local TV personalities, with the TV guys (and girls) each doing a 50m length vs Thorpe doing the full 400m. Thorpe just barely won.
I think that’s sort of the concept of “Pros vs Joes,” but I’ve neer really seen it a full eipisode all the way through.
“Average Joes” who feel they missed their calling in a particular sport play against professional athletes from other sports…though there may be one or two from the sport they’re playing, cause I think it’s just one big group of pros from all sports that compete in whatever the “sport of the day” is.
The Race of Champions is a bit like that but for motorsport- they take drivers from most of the major competitions and stick them all in the same cars.
So far, I think they’ve used off-road buggies, rally cars, touring cars (the international equivalent of stock cars, but actually “stock” in that they use the original chassis and body), and I think Le Mans-style endurance racers.