I believe many people have jokingly proposed that every Olympic event contain one random/normal person to give some sense of perspective of the real skill and performance of the Olympians.
After he retired he went around playing amateurs and completely dominating them. He became semi famous for his saying "I'm closer to LeBron James than you are you to me."
Some jogging-hurdles by high-jumper Stefan Holm:
Being in diamond 5~ (top 1% back in the days) meant that you were significantly better than people in silver, gold, platinum.
But the gap between you top 1% (e.g diamond 5 50lp) and top 0.3% diamond 1 was bigger than the gap between gold (top 30%) and you top 1%
Even SC2, the difference between a top 10 globally and top 100 is a 99% win rate vs the later.
*100m Sprint*:
1st percentile: ~18-20 seconds
50th percentile: ~14-15 seconds
99th percentile: ~11-11.5 seconds
Elite world-class: ~9.8-10.2 seconds
World record: 9.58 seconds (Usain Bolt, 2009)
*1-Mile Run*:
1st percentile: ~12-15 minutes
50th percentile: ~8-9 minutes
99th percentile: ~4:30-5:00 minutes
Elite world-class: ~3:45-3:55
World record: 3:43.13 (Hicham El Guerrouj, 1999)
*Marathon* (26.2 miles):
1st percentile: ~6+ hours
50th percentile: ~4:30-5:00 hours
99th percentile: ~3:00-3:15 hours
Elite world-class: ~2:05-2:10
World record: 2:00:35 (Kelvin Kiptum, 2023)*
I’m not disputing the gaps in technique, just to be clear.
Another one: when I was a kid. There was a guy a few years older who would basically win the matches in his youth league alone. He would often score 10 or 20 goals per match . He finally made it to the pros. There he played a few matches and didn’t get another contract because he wasn’t good enough. Now imagine how good somebody like Messi must be.
When two of my friends started playing I could pretty easily beat both of them while they were playing together with any race setup, BUT at the same time it would have taken 3-5 of myself to even have the slightest chance against a professional level player.
They jumped except for the swimmer who just got on the starting pole, adjusted his glasses, smiled around, stretched and finally started. He expectedly won.
He was not showing off, it was to show the difference between active people and top class pros.
Except that they're in a 50 meter pool, and I was in a 25 meter pool.
At one point I could run marathons in 3 hours, 50% longer than the winners. Now I'm old, and I'm trying to get back to running them merely 100% longer. That is unlikely.
They played some showcase team from the west coast, who just destroyed them completely. One kid was 6’4” and was 5/5, all home runs. He was 12.