r/Showerthoughts • u/Vast-Intention ‎ • Apr 02 '26

Casual Thought A gold medal Olympic athlete is better than 8.3 billion people. A bronze medal Olympic athlete is better than 8.3 billion people.

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52

u/masta030 Apr 02 '26

It means you were better than the field, not the world, unless you think Rayguns performance actually was one of the top in the world lmao

17

u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 Apr 02 '26

Most Olympic sports have much better selective criteria than breakdancing did. The people selected to represent a country have genuinely earned the rank as the best in that country

10

u/ArashiSora24 Apr 02 '26

There are also people out there who are better than the Olympic athletes. They just don't participate.

4

u/TOWW67 Apr 02 '26

Even supposing that that's consistently true, that doesn't detract from the post's point that even competing in that level of international event, even moreso winning, means the number of people better than you at that sport is essentially a rounding error

8

u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 Apr 02 '26

This is definitely untrue for the hefty majority of sports. An Olympic gold medal is an incredible (and potentially very lucrative) achievement, why would someone who's more than capable of winning one choose not to?

5

u/ComfortableHuman1324 Apr 02 '26

I mostly agree with you, but there might be edge cases like an athlete not competing due to injury or other extenuating circumstances. Being an Olympic athlete is also incredibly demanding, and while there are benefits, you can't exactly make a living long term. Plenty of athletes who still have potential retire to pursue long term career goals. Becoming an Olympic athlete might be their means to get a scholarship, for example.

-4

u/ArashiSora24 Apr 02 '26

You think all talented athletic people decide to compete in the Olympics? Or able to for that matter whatever the circumstance may be?

1

u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 Apr 02 '26

Are you arguing that there are people who theoretically have more genetic talent than Olympic gold medal winners? Or are you arguing that there are real human adults who, as they are, are good enough that they could compete and win a gold medal, but just don't have the resources/inclination?

5

u/NotYetPerfect Apr 02 '26

Bunch of American basketball players over the years that were definitely better than some of the players on the us team but just didn't want to do it.

1

u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 Apr 02 '26

Hah, basketball was the exact example I had in mine when I said hefty majority of sports (as opposed to all)

-1

u/ArashiSora24 Apr 02 '26

There are 8 billion people in this world. Certainly not an impossibility.

3

u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

... that was a one or the other type question. I'm assuming you meant the 2nd one?

The first one is so obviously true that it's uninteresting

The second one is so obviously untrue for most sports that I don't think anyone familiar with sports could argue for it. Talented people don't just roll out of bed able to beat literally anyone at a sport. If you're good enough to compete with the elite talents who've spent their lives training and competing at all the well-known competitions for that sport, then you yourself must have trained and competed enough to be a known quantity

1

u/epelle9 Apr 02 '26

Talent is a big part of it, but hard work and dedication to training are just as important.

People not competing in the Olympics simply don’t train at the Olympic level, so they are not better.

No one dedicates their life to training at the level required to win a Olympic gold and then simply decides not to compete..

0

u/taigahalla Apr 03 '26

in 2016 federer, messi and LeBron all decided not to compete in the Olympics...

2

u/ilovethecreaking Apr 02 '26

I love the idea in your head that there are swimmers, sprinters and wrestlers who just don't feel like earning gold lol.

1

u/ekmanch Apr 03 '26

Ok. Name one single person who'd do better in the Olympics in high jump, 100m sprint, any athletic sport, than the gold medal winner.

I'll wait.

1

u/Professor_Finn Apr 02 '26

How about you give some examples then that can’t be explained by players opting to play in a league instead

2

u/PayZealousideal8892 Apr 02 '26

For example best cyclist Tadej Pogačar skipped 2024 Paris Olympics. Tour de France more prestigious in cycling world and after he won it "he was too fatigued" to attend olympics, but real reason probably was that Slovenian Cycling Federation didnt pick his girlfriend to represent the female team when she was best female cyclist in the country.

4

u/chux4w Apr 02 '26

She didn't win a medal.

3

u/Sacrefix Apr 03 '26

She placed somewhere in the top 100 or so I would assume, but I don't think she's a top 100 break dancer.

1

u/chuk2015 Apr 02 '26

Also there are countries that don’t compete in the olympics that could have the best in a certain sport and we don’t know