Watching the gymnastics brought home to me how strong and agile those athletes have to be. The pommel horse, the rings and the asymetric bars were absolutely beyong human comprehension, as was the floor exercises. Truly amazing! To be able to be good on all of these pieces of apparatus must take huge dedication. Time trial on bikes must also require the most amazing levels of discipline. You are racing against the clock with very little as a point of reference. Basically 100% balls out for an hour! 10 mtr diving. I couldn't even jump off let alonejump, then twist and sumersault again is beyond my comprehension. Rowing - must require the utmost strength and concentration. Shooting - pretty simple really - a Portsmouth upbringing should give you the experience needed with very little effort
I would agree with Joe that butterfly is by far the hardest stroke. I was quite good at all the other strokes at school but could never get to grips with butterfly. One of the Michael Phelps-related facts that came out this evening was that his world record for the 100m butterfly would have got him into the GB 4 x 100m freestyle relay team. Amazing. Having said all that I think that the gymnasts are the most disciplined athletes, the cyclists, especially the road racers, the most enduring, and the fencers and the table tennis players the most technically skilled. But the hardest Olympic sport has to be the triathlon.
Gymnastics I think would be the hardest combines fitness with technique in a way no other sport does, however a word for diving I used to dive when I was about 10 or 11 and jumped off a 10m a few times and it is utterly terrifying, so I then retreated to the 7m which is almost as scary. So i've a lot of respect for Daley who as a 14 competed in the olympics in a terrifying and extremely technical event.
I can never get my head around the gymnastics and the flexibility of them all. The rings, for instance, I know the rings themselves spin around but I I naturally cringe as their arms seemingly contort and rotate in the shoulder joint, it just looks like they're going to dislocate or just break!
I'm biased but i'd have to say the marathon. These guys are running a km in about 2'45 to win the race. There are 42 of them!
Apparently some refugee without a country is running in the marathon...don't know what that's about unless it's part of our visa application programme. Prove you can win a medal and you get the right to move here.
Those pro Bull-Riders on ESPN have my admiration, but I recently watched a televised Rodeo and learned that the Bucking Broncos are an even tougher ride. In Olympic terms, triathlon must be an absolute killer. Especially swimming in the Serpentine - God knows what's lurking in the bottom of that. But the athletes i'll be rooting for the most in theses games are the 2 Eritrean marathon runners. They've trained in a war zone, running past burnt out buildings, tanks etc, and risking getting caught in cross fire.
At this level any sport is hard. Some of the results people have been getting in some of the technical sports are just mind boggling. One of our British shooters scored 595 points out of 600 and still didnt qulaify for the final!
On that note, I'm pretty confident that to even get into the 100m final it'll take a time significantly below 10 seconds...
Much as I hate to agree with one of the blue few, I have to do so. Archery is the most difficult. It is known as "The Art of Repetition". Same action every time in wind, rain or shine, at a distance of 70 metres(in the olympics) and to win you have to put each arrow in a target the size of an orange. The 10 point gold area is 12.5cm diameter. No sighters for them, just straight in. Brilliant sport that anyone can have a go at.
Actually if my memory of the opening ceremony is accurate, there are three. Two of them are from South Sudan, which has only been a country for about a year, so probably didn't see signing up to membership of the IOC as a big priority.
