@BruidheanChaorthainn vindicated yet again. Get your coat @backinatracksuit.
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Not at all, that doesnāt mean anything.
I have a sister who followed the same path, stone useless at sports until she found rowing and then won a few national championships as a skuller and represented her country.
Iām not sure what you thought I was disputing, @BruidheanChaorthainn said that rowing was a sport for failed rugby players with commerce degrees,
It takes shit loads of hard work and solid technique, itās not rocket science and thereās not any real skill involved, but itās insulting to serious rowers to say itās for failed C rugby players
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Thereās no soft medals in swimming
Answer A
We rented out the BMX track in Manchester for my lads 7th or 8th birthday, which was built identical to the one for the London Olympics. The most stressful 90 minutes of tears blood snot and teeth of other peopleās children Iāll ever experience. 
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Itās a nonsense argument, thereās tonnes of examples of top level sports people who came to their chosen sport later in teens or twenties.
The Aussie marathon runner from Mayo whoās run in Olympics and world championships only took up running in her late 20s I think.
Itās a difference between skill based sports and endurance ones.
Thereās nobody taking up the pommel horse in their late 20ās and heading to Tokyo.
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Yeah thatās fair. Sure the average gymnast age must be early 20s or so. Iād say their bodies are fucked by the time they hit their 30s
She didnāt run as a kid?
Walked everywhere?
No games of tag?
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She explicitly called out not playing tag as being key to her success after a big race win.
Ray Flynn?
There is so much untapped talent out there. PE in schools is an abject failure. We have a lad who represents Ireland at Athletics. This happened by chance as we have a running coach on our staff and kid tried out one day. If kid went somewhere else, that talent would never be realised.
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Thatās the same everywhere. Herself went to school with Raula Padcliffe. Now whilst Iām the first to think Raula had a lot in common with seashell myth, she still was international class. Herself said there were two girls from the childrenās home used to absolutely hammer Raula in every running event. Raula just had a dad who was interested.
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Correct, talent alone is insufficient. Determination, persistance and self belief are necessary to ensure that talent blooms, and an interested parent can contribute significantly to that.
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Just accept that the overwhelming majority of people will never row in a boat more than once or twice in their lives. Itās a tiny niche sport given a massive platform once every 4 years.
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David Rudisha was a Masai, which was a big novelty in Kenya. First ever real top class Masai athlete.
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Ray Flynn is from Longford. Good article on him in Ian OāRiordanās athletics column in the Paper of Record a few weeks back.
Paul O Donovan Id say it was. Won a medal at one of the championships around then.
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Ray is now living in Tennessee where he heads up some kind of sports management outfit.
He appears to be making good bobs at it if appearances are any yardstick. Our tribes are intertwined fwiw.
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