I wish they’d bundle the World’s 9 ball championship into an Olympic event. The WPA (World Pool-Billiard Association) has tournaments all over the world.
I used to play a competitive game. I played at an old billiard hall built in the 1940’s with Brunswick slate tables. It closed a few years ago and I haven’t played much since. It would be worth setting up a table at home to focus on making a Olympic team. Yeah, I know that train left the station long ago. I’d still give it one heck of a try.
My hometown in SW Arkansas. There was always a group of older men playing Dominoes in the front. Spittoons for their chew. Wooden board floors. You could tell it hadn’t changed in fifty years. I stayed out of those Domino games. Those guys had been playing for decades and were serious.
The people running it finally retired or died. I guess none of their family wanted to run it. I always wondered what happened to those Brunswick tables.
The Student Union at my college had tournament tables. I played there almost every afternoon after my last class. I didn’t get involved in the collegiate tournaments. Travel and the entry fees were too expensive.
There was a place in Seattle for a while that had some old tables; ten-foot long, with one-piece slates. That was twenty years ago that I played there. Heaven knows where they got those tables, or what became of them.
ETA: I don’t necessarily object to modern pool halls with the music and such. But watch the beginning of The Hustler someday; that’s the kind of place to play pool.
Some sort of target shooting would give me the best chance, since there’s at least a chance that I can get in a lucky shot, and therefore also a chance that I could get in enough lucky shots in a row to medal. It’s a very small chance, mind you, but it’s possible. There is, however, no chance at all that I could run or swim or jump or whatever nearly as fast or as far or as high as an Olympian.
I wish I could say judo, but even I can’t fool myself that badly. I’ve sparred with Olympians, including one who medaled. Like wrestling a grizzly bear, except less competitive. Those guys are on a different level from the rest of us.
Thirty five years ago, when I was at my physical peak? Same answer.
The question is what would you do best at? From a past thread I know you can ride a bicycle, perhaps your skill there would exceed your skill at shooting. For myself I have no illusions that I would be competitive in anything with any Olympian unless they start a sushi eating event.
That’s certainly how I would have the best chance of medaling. After all, in probably something like a quarter of top-level soccer matches, the goalkeeper only touches the ball in easy routine situations (and/or misses shots that even the best in the world would have no chance at anyway). So it’s certainly possible that, say, Brazil could win a gold medal with me in goal. Even the current mumble years past my prime bad-knees-and-all me. It’s more likely that I’d cost them a game by blowing a save any competent Olympic level keeper could make, but it’s not insanely unlikely they could win with me behind them, with solid defense and some luck.
Heck, it’s really unlikely, but not infinitesimally unlikely that the US mens soccer team could win a medal, even with me in goal. Far more likely than me beating individual Olympic athletes at their event, anyway.
If the question is ‘what event would the current me do best at?’ probably I guess some kind of cycle sprint? I mean, all the real athletes would be doubled over laughing at me, but I might be able to get one to admit I did better than an average schlub.
absolute nonsense. You’d be peppered by long range shots and your team would have to change their whole style of play in order to account for your incompetence.
Even under routine situations your distribution would be suspect and they couldn’t trust you with receiving back-passes. Set-pieces would see high balls pumped in and you getting nowhere near them.
And what about the 75% of games where, by your own stats, the keeper is called upon to do more than the routine?
I’ve played in goal against rank amateurs, I’ve played in goal against semi-pros. Let me be absolutely frank, you’d be a liability every step of the way and the big boys would have you for breakfast.
I was pretty good at archery in high school. I have no misconceptions that I was anywhere close to Olympic-caliber good but it was the one time I didn’t dread gym class. Never got a chance to pursue it after high school, and that was a long time ago. I have no idea how I’d do now with the fancy bows they use now.
I could ride the pine, maybe play a little mop up time in basketball and bring home a gold medal on the backs of my teammates. Too bad baseball’s not in anymore. That would be my preference. Otherwise, there are probably a few events I could almost participate in competently, but nothing I could medal in.
Totally agree that I would indeed be a huge liability in goal, every step of the way and then some.
I didn’t say it was a** good** chance that Brazil could win with me in goal, mid-I just said it was the best chance of me getting to a medal stand.
I already said it would take luck, giant heaping helpings of it, and almost perfect play by the real Brazilian team, but it’s a least barely conceivable [For the record, I’ve played in goal against, well, mostly-but-not-completely-rank amateurs, so I think I could still handle easy back passes, make very easy routine saves, get goal kicks out to midfield, and even maybe get a fist on an easy hanging cross. I’m not saying Brazil has any chance with someone in a wheelchair who doesn’t know the rules of soccer].
And again, it’s not likely or easy for Brazil to win with me in goal, but it is far, far, far, more likely than me winning a bicycle race against real Olympic cyclists, or me winning in any other Olympic competition that I can think of. Any other event I can think of would require walking-on-water-while-raising-the-dead-at-the-same-time levels of miraculousness, while me medaling as a goalkeeper on a favorite team is more like 1950’s USA beating England in a World Cup levels of miraculous.
If we exclude sports where you can sit on the bench, I guess shooting. I am an excellent shot. I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of winning, but I’d look like I knew what I was doing. It wouldn’t be embarrassing or painful.
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Heck, it’s really unlikely, but not infinitesimally unlikely that the US mens soccer team could win a medal, even with me in goal.
[/QUOTE]
Completely impossible.
As Novelty Bobble points out, the problem with this theory (or any one of a number of theories one could come up with) is that your presence on the field alters the manner in which the other players behave. The German squad is not going to see you in goal and say “let’s just play like we always do.” The way they usually play is based on the assumption that the other team’s goalkeeper is athletic and competent. You aren’t, so they’re going to play accordingly by shooting at you every chance they get, from ranges and angles they would never try against a REAL keeper. Your inability to distribute the ball also alters their play; they can play incredibly shallow anytime you have to deliver the ball, allowing for rapid counterattacks that you are singularly unprepared to handle. Believe me, you’d be lucky if they didn’t score ten goals.
Goalkeeping looks easy on TV. It’s not. It’s incredibly hard. Watch a good rep teenager team do goalkeeping practice. Those kids bust their asses and work on their technique exhaustively.
The same is going to be true of any team sport, I’m afraid. If you play on the baseball team in 2020 and get stuck in left field and hitting ninth, that’s far less damaging to the baseball team than you playing goal for the soccer team - but it’s probably fatal all the same, because when they see a guy who isn’t really a ballplayer is in left field, they’re going to start trying to hit it to left and they’re going to run on you on every single play. Elite level ballplayers absolutely WILL come at you and make you look foolish.
It always irks me when someone says the horse does all the work. Have you ever ridden a horse? Not just a trail ride, but over a course of fences or through a dressage test? It looks effortless when the pros do it, but it’s still a lot of work for the rider, and if you’re doing it right, it is a team sport and a partnership between horse and rider.
Setting the pace through the course, setting the horse up correctly on the approach to the jumps, both for where to take off and how to ride the correct striding through a set of obstacles, finding the line to the next fence, even just negotiating the jumps in the correct order is all on the rider. Riding a horse is more than just sitting there kicking to go and hauling on the reins to stop.
When I was riding regularly I was the fittest I’ve ever been, and that’s not because the horse was doing all the work.
fair enough, you have a self-awareness that wasn’t necessarily apparent in your original post. Plus, I wouldn’t be looking at hitching your wagon to the Brazilian team either, they aren’t the bees knees at the moment.
Plus, the thing you diplomatically leave out is that…beautiful creatures though they are…horses are inherently fucking mental. A plastic bag in the breeze can send them into a shit-fit. I don’t fancy wrestling half a ton of borderline nutcase for a living.
I’m almost certainly better at cycling than I am at shooting, and I’m probably a better cyclist than the average American, but even so, I’m frequently (twice a day or so) passed by faster cyclists on the streets.
As for what sport I’m in the highest percentile for, that’s probably race-walking. I’m still nowhere near the world-class competitors (they’re about half again as fast as me, sustained over distances over ten times greater), but I can still walk faster than everyone I know.