The Easiest Olympic Sport

Every year when the olympics come on, I ask the question "If I were to start training now, what sport would be the most realistic to compete in by next olymipcs?" This of course depends a lot on the person and their existing skillset, athletic ability, and genetics. I'm wondering for myself specifically. I believe the answer is tandem flatwater canoe. At the olympic level, this is a race where two people kneel in a very narrow boat, and row at essentially max effort for about 3.5 minutes. Now if you are itching to explain to me why rowing is actually really hard, save it. Going to the olympics is obviously hard, we're just talking about comparative ease. If you think there is a better answer, please let me know so I can start training. Here is the justification tandem canoe:

1. Canoe racing is uncommon and expensive to train.

There are very vew places in the world where you have a good setup to train in this sport, and the clubs are usually fairly costly. This is a huge advantage over more meritocratic sports like running, where it's quite likely anyone with extraordinary genetic predisposition to athleticism has likely already surfaced. You don't have to be the theoretical best, you just have to be the best (or nearly the best) of anyone actively playing the sport.

2. There is no money in canoe racing.

There are very few canoe races with prize money, meaning most atheltes, even at the highest level, lose money pursuing this sport. That's a good thing. It means there aren't strong incentives to succeeed aside from glory (I think it's not a coincidence many of the best endurance atheltes come from the poorest places in the world).

3. Low skill barrier.

I think skill acquisition and physical adaptation are relatively separable concepts. Running is a very low skill sport -- one could learn nearly everything they need to know to compete at the highest level from a book. Gymnastics is a very high skill sport -- you need a ton of specialized instruction and equipment to learn new movements. Canoe racing is closer to running in this respect. It requires a coach to master the rowing movement, but the vast majority of training time goes to straight physical adaptation. Physical training happens faster than skill adoption. Humans can improve skills over decades without hitting a theoretical limit, but with very dedicated training people can reach their athletic ceiling within five years.

4. There's another guy in the boat.

He can probably do all the work, right?