Of the all the sports/games that I have sampled, I find swimming, snooker & chess to be the ones that I really enjoy the most and I spend a reasonable amount of time on each of these. I treat them all as hobbies and therefore can only call myself an amateur. But I ain't no pushover either. I'm pretty sure I can give another amateur a good fight in any of these three. Now, it would be highly unreasonable of me to try and compare myself to the pros, so I thought, "why not compare myself to the kid pros?".
So I picked 11 and decided to see how I stand up against the eleven year old pros. The highest unofficial rating I have reached in chess is probably 1600. I can swim the 200 free in about 2:40, and my highest break in snooker has been 44 points. I then dug up the data on exactly where some of today's champions stood at, when they were eleven years old. At the age of eleven, Magnus Carlsen was an IM and rated well over 2100 !! Phelps had swum the 200 free in about 2:13 !! And Ronnie O'Sullivan was regularly making century breaks !! I could devote all my time & energy to one of these games, to try and equal the feats of these champions at age 11, and it would still be extremely difficult if not impossible for me to do it. Right now, if I could go back in time and compete with them at age eleven, it would be no contest and I'd be smashed to smithereens. This has been a humbling exercise for me. But now I also have three goals to work towards!
What sport do you play? Do the "eleven year old" test for that and see where you stand. Leave me a comment!
To me this also ends the debate of hard work vs. talent. Whoever says it's all about hard work is wrong. Clearly these champions are all incredibly gifted as well. They are aberrations, anomalies, just like Neo was. They are freaks of nature, imbued with the just the right genetic material and the good fortune to have stumbled upon their respective games early. But having benefited from all the accidents of nature they have then also put in mind boggling amounts of hard work in order to master their craft. Michael Phelps trained twice a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year, for five straight years. He didn't miss one practice in 5 years leading up to the legendary Great Haul of China!!
The point I'm trying to make here is this. If there is any athlete or sports person you admire casually from a distance, don't just admire them for their results, for what they produce on match day. A closer of scrutiny of their lives will reveal unimaginable hard work, sacrifice & dedication. Admire them for that instead. It's so much more inspiring!
So I picked 11 and decided to see how I stand up against the eleven year old pros. The highest unofficial rating I have reached in chess is probably 1600. I can swim the 200 free in about 2:40, and my highest break in snooker has been 44 points. I then dug up the data on exactly where some of today's champions stood at, when they were eleven years old. At the age of eleven, Magnus Carlsen was an IM and rated well over 2100 !! Phelps had swum the 200 free in about 2:13 !! And Ronnie O'Sullivan was regularly making century breaks !! I could devote all my time & energy to one of these games, to try and equal the feats of these champions at age 11, and it would still be extremely difficult if not impossible for me to do it. Right now, if I could go back in time and compete with them at age eleven, it would be no contest and I'd be smashed to smithereens. This has been a humbling exercise for me. But now I also have three goals to work towards!
What sport do you play? Do the "eleven year old" test for that and see where you stand. Leave me a comment!
To me this also ends the debate of hard work vs. talent. Whoever says it's all about hard work is wrong. Clearly these champions are all incredibly gifted as well. They are aberrations, anomalies, just like Neo was. They are freaks of nature, imbued with the just the right genetic material and the good fortune to have stumbled upon their respective games early. But having benefited from all the accidents of nature they have then also put in mind boggling amounts of hard work in order to master their craft. Michael Phelps trained twice a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year, for five straight years. He didn't miss one practice in 5 years leading up to the legendary Great Haul of China!!
The point I'm trying to make here is this. If there is any athlete or sports person you admire casually from a distance, don't just admire them for their results, for what they produce on match day. A closer of scrutiny of their lives will reveal unimaginable hard work, sacrifice & dedication. Admire them for that instead. It's so much more inspiring!
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