What competition reality show's competitors are "best"?

Cafe Society
1

Note: this thread is solely about COMPETITION reality shows, ie your top chef, project runway, and so forth. It is NOT about duck dynasty, or real housewives of anything…

So my wife and I, despite knowing nothing at all about guns and not particularly caring about guns, have been enjoying watching the show Top Shots, which is a competition show about shooting various sorts of guns and weapons.

The competitors on this show have what seem like awfully impressive resumes… 12-time-national-pistol-champion, and things like that. That got me wondering… are there in fact people out there in the world who are absolutely acknowledged shooting masters who are “too good” to go on Top Shot, because it would be beneath them, but everyone involved kind of acknowledges that if these REAL master shooters showed up they would pretty much wipe the floor with the normal competitors? Or are these competitors in fact basically as good as it gets?

Compare that to something like Top Chef, where the competitors are obviously extremely talented, but are usually early in their careers, and we are definitely led to assume that Tom Colicchio would pretty much wipe the floor with any of them in just about any cooking challenge.
So, my question is… are there any reality competition shows in which the people competing on the show are, basically, the very best in the entire world at that skill, or at least on part with them?

In particular, I’m interested in shows where the skill set needed for the show is something which also translates into measurable success in some other professional field. I mean, the people who compete on Survivor may in fact be the very best survivor-competitors in the world, but that’s kind of circular and uninteresting.

Some possibilities, from my fairly limited knowledge:
-Top Shot
-Top Chef Masters and/or The Next Iron Chef: Superchefs. The first season of Top Chef Masters, in particular, really seemed like it had absolutely-top-of-their-game famous chefs, playing for charity. If there’s another level of even-famouser-and-better chefs above them, it’s pretty darn small

And one that only kind of fits my criteria: American Ninja Warrior - It’s a bit unclear that the skills that make you a good American Ninja Warrior-er really translate into anything else, but a lot of those guys seem to have jobs as parkour instructors, stuntmen, etc. In any case, I don’t see any reason to think that there is some parkour/freerunning master who would just wipe the floor with those guys but doesn’t deign to compete.
And a related question: now that some of these shows have been running for many seasons, is there anyone who has won one of these shows and is now viewed as one of top talents of his or her generation in their field? Have any of the American Idol winners gone on to be genuine and lasting rock/pop stars, past just “here is foo, winner of season 3 of AI”? Are any of the former Top Chef or Project Runway winners on the short list of best young chefs/designers in the nation?

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The competitors on “So You Think You Can Dance” are all incredibly talented- you have to master several forms of dance to do well on that show- not all of which can be familiar to the contestants beforehand. Most hip hop dancers are unfamiliar with ballroom, for example, but they have to learn it on the show.

Several past competitors have done well enough after the show as performers and choreographers- but the world of dance is fairly small. Some have become pros on "Dancing with the Stars, for example, or have had parts in dance movies.

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The Next Iron Chef. If you accept the fact that people like Alice Waters, Thomas Keller and Joel Rubuchon aren’t interested in playing, the rest of the crew are chefs at the top of their game. I would put Symon up against anybody in the country.

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The only season I watched was the “superchefs” season, which certainly had a more famous slate of contestants. How do the “normal” contestants compare to, say, Top Chef contestants?

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It’s hard to say. Top Chef seems to attract better contestants, but the difference is small. Any of the Iron Chefs could equal Top Chef winners and vice versa. Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelsson, fellow Masters competitor Michael Chiarello, and former Top Chef contestants Marcel and Spike all have competed on The Next Iron Chef. None won the title. (There might be more crossover, but I’m done looking it up.)