Olympic sports we’d be terrified to compete in, from high dive to wrestling

The Olympics are the greatest worldwide showcase of athleticism and competition in existence. It’s such a joy to see athletes train their entire lives for a specific event, and then finally get a worldwide audience to show off their talents. We marvel at Olympics athletes because they do things ordinary people can only accomplish in their dreams.

If you really think about it, a lot of Olympic events are absolutely terrifying.

Ordinary people simply aren’t built for the brutality of the Olympics. Just considering the idea of competing in rugby or Judo or distance swimming events is a scary proposition. These are the events in the Summer Olympics we wouldn’t ever want to try.

Wrestling

I keep coming back to the same question: Which of these sports could leave me altered forever? To this end it has to be Olympic wrestling. In every other event I can think of an out, a way to escape danger. There are so many terrifying sports at the games, but there is nowhere to hide in wrestling.

Sure, I could run off the mat, out of the arena, and catch the next plane back to North Carolina — but if I assume I have to compete, then I’m gettin absolutely brutalized by a wrestler.

Here’s how things go: I approach the wrestler in the hopes of putting up a fight. I get hit with a fireman’s carry, I’m on my back, now my shoulder is being stretched to the point where I tear my rotator cuff. Then my neck gets stretched to an extent I need to buy a Sleep Number bed just to fall asleep at night.

I return a broken shell of who I once was, all because a modern version of Kurt Angle decided to break me.

— James Dator

The high dive

Let us get one thing out of the way.

I am terrified of heights.

I have written about this fear before. Despite being invited to New York City by Williams for the launch of the FW46, their challenger for the 2024 Formula 1 season, I almost turned right around upon arrival in New York when I learned the event would be in the Rainbow Room of 30 Rock, 65 floors above the city. So there is a non-zero chance that, upon reaching the platform, I just get dizzy from fear and fall off the side.

Then if I somehow manage to attempt a dive, there’s a good chance I fail there too. During high school, I would attend the Dartmouth Football Camp each summer at Dartmouth College. One such summer all the players were given the afternoon off to spend in the school’s pool. I tried one of the higher diving boards, fully intending to just drop in feet-first. But I over-rotated and ended up doing a bellyflop from what felt like an unreasonable height.

So, tl;dr: Absolutely not.

— Mark Schofield

Water Polo

Growing up, I heard horror stories from my friends who played water polo. I thought they were just being dramatic teenage girls, but after watching the USA vs. Spain women’s water polo match on Tuesday, I believe them all.

This sport looks exhausting, difficult and I am still confused what is considered a foul and what isn’t because it looks like they are constantly beating each other up while attempting not to drown. There are also minimal breaks and they never stop moving. After watching one game I felt the need to chug a Gatorade. If I were to attempt this sport, I would probably just cry the whole time filling the pool up with my tears. I would at least have quads of steel though.

One thing is clear, if you play water polo — you are one tough cookie.

— Beth Maiman

Rugby

A lot of people think rugby is football without pads, which to an extent is true. There are 7-11 players on a field at the same time, there’s an oblong shaped ball and people get freaking blasted on bone-crunching tackles—without pads.

That’s about where the comparisons stop. Rugby is played in halves, with minimal stopping between play. So you’re combining the physicality of football with the conditioning of soccer. No matter how good you were on your high school football team, you don’t have the stamina to run the length of the field constantly while being split in half by tackles with no padding.

Rugby is awesome to watch, but you, the average human, can’t just wake up and go play in the Olympics.

— JP Acosta

Balance beam

Normal people on the balance beam:

I have a certain semblance of balance, but seeing people get on it, and then doing flips and jumps? There’s absolutely no way I can do that.

— David Fucillo

Pole vault

The pole vault is like that famous scene from the first Star Wars movie, when Luke is flying down that Death Star canyon at breakneck speed in hopes of blowing up the whole dang thing.

Instead of firing torpedoes into an exhaust port in space, however, you need to be able to stick a 17ish-foot pole at the exact right angle and speed into a tiny hole on firm ground. And you’re not done either. You need to grab onto that pole with your dear life, watch it bend and pray it won’t break, defy gravity by catapulting yourself over another pole that’s almost 20 feet in the air, and then hope you land safely on the other side without dying.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Yeah, I thought so.

— Bernd Buchmasser

Triathlon

Doing any individual part of a triathlon is ridiculously hard. But doing them all at once is certifiably insane. But fine, “regular” people do triathlons every weekend. What makes the Olympics different is both the other competitors and the location.

What a lot of people don’t know is just how cutthroat the swim portion can be during a triathlon. Bodies are climbing over each other, kicking and slapping under the water. Sometimes not even on purpose. I want no part of these world class athletes trying to drown me. Then multiply the risk of everything because we are doing this in the totally clean and don’t ever ask about it again Seine River.

Even if I make it through the swim portion, the amount of effort needed to survive would put me on death’s door while trying to get through the bike and run portions. Which means even if I’m actively trying to hang back and avoid conflict, I’m not making it back to the Olympic Village.

— Kyle Thele

Marathon Swimming

You thought a 1.5-kilometer swim in the Seine was rough, now let’s try doing it for 10! That’s how long the marathon swim is at the Olympics. For Americans, that’s 6.2 miles of swimming and takes a couple hours for the best in the world to complete. Instead of using a pool or a big body of water, in Paris, the current of the Seine will be in their face for half the race and at their back for half the race, as they loop around the circuit six times.

In a normal marathon, you can stop running and walk for a bit to catch your breath and water down or eat a snack. Marathon swimmers aren’t allowed to touch a boat or leave the water, though they can eat and drink while swimming.

So while I thought about Canoe Slalom, Sailing, Surfing, Table Tennis, Triathlon, and a host of other events (I have never been on a horse, Equestrian people), the Marathon Swim is the only one that lasts forever and is likely to kill me.

— Matt Warren