Average Athlete vs Olympic Athlete
By Christian Bovine on Day 2
Dennis Crowley and I spent all day doing 5 different Olympic Events: 100m freestyle, 100m dash, 110m hurdles, long jump and the rings (in gymnastics) and compared ourselves to Olympic athletes. This was to see just how amazing these athletes are in comparison to average Joes and as an excuse to do Olympic events all day. Since we only had one day to do all five events, with the famous Robert Moon video taping us and edit all the footage together it could have been done a bit better but we are happy with the outcome.
(Previously, I made some grammatical errors, thank so much for bringing them to my attention. The 24 hour time constraint, along with 5 Olympic Events then editing it all together seemed to effect my writing skills.)
FYI:
100 meter Freestyle:
Christian’s Time = 1:18:10
Dennis = DQ for touching bottom of pool, thats illegal
But his time was: 1:56:30
Olympic Winner = 47:52
Long Jump
Christian = 14.1 Feet (4.3 meters)
Dennis = 13.7 Feet (4.17 meters)
Olympian = 8.95 meters
Video
Bonus Footage
July 31st, 2008
Day 
38 Comments
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1. Pedantic | August 1st, 2008 at 3:29 am
Dennis Crowley and who? I think you mean, “Dennis Crowley and I.”
Also, “average Joe’s” does not require an apostrophe. It should be “average Joes.”
Yeah, I’m an a-hole. But I’m an a-hole with good grammar.
2. galen | August 5th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
These two guys are actually in pretty good shape. The fact that they can get close to even completing every event is damn impressive.
3. Mjohnson | August 5th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I hate you pedant! Me, myself, I, one, and everyone else. Olympics yay!
4. More Pedantic Than You. | August 5th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Pedantic,
The comma in your second sentence was wholly unnecessary, and therefore inappropriate. You sentence should have read: “I think you mean ‘Dennis Crowley and I.'”
Cheers,
More Pedantic Than You
5. Average Athletes Vs Olymp&hellip | August 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
[…] 5th, 2008 12:55 pm: Video of two average athletes competing in 5 Olympic events superimposed side by side next to actual Olympic athletes. You’ve got to stick around for the […]
6. grammar nazi | August 5th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
It’s “Dennis and I” not “Dennis and myself.” You say it so much I can’t even read your entry.
7. grammar nazi | August 5th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Ha, I posted without reading the other comments. Good, it looks like it’s bothering everyone and not just me.
8. The Pageman | August 5th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
“You sentence should have read: “I think you mean ‘Dennis Crowley and I.’”
You should be “Your”?
you mean should “you meant”?
9. Phil | August 5th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Great vid guys. Helps me (and everyone else) recognize these amazing athletes for what they are.
Also, the grammar battle that’s going on is ridiculously stupid. Grow up, guys.
10. stevanpierce | August 5th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Yeah, 100m swim is a lot harder than most people think…the other events, hell I would crash and burn at the hurdles.
11. Internet Corrector | August 5th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
While I could enjoy and appreciate all creative work and personal time you spent making this clever video, I find it makes me feel better about my own lack of personal creative output to make banal grammatical corrections that I think make me look smart in the public comments. Of course, such behavior makes me look like a pedantic shithead in actuality, but my own personal lack of awareness on how others perceive me allow me to live in my little bubble of illusion undisturbed. My own personal level of greatness and usefulness has grown many-fold since I discovered I could comment on other people’s work on the internet without having to leave the comfort of this chair.
12. Pedantic | August 5th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Actually, Internet Corrector, you mean “allows,” not “allow.”
13. jb | August 5th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
this was really funny i enjoyed watching it.
14. Josh | August 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Great video.
15. hypercorrecter | August 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
This is such a good discussion about grammar. You guys are the best but I can’t believe you didn’t catch more errors. After “average Joes” it should read “like Dennis and me” not “like Dennis and I.” This is a classic example of the amateur self-proclaimed grammar expert gone awry. But don’t blame me. I’m no expert.
16. LL | August 5th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Comment thread: falls at the first hurdle.
17. Alberto | August 5th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Well, since you appreciated the first corrections…
“affect”, not “effects” your writing skills.
18. Jon C | August 5th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Great idea and execution!
Wish you would have posted times for swimming and compared length in long jump.
19. linguist | August 6th, 2008 at 12:39 am
These grammarians have no idea what they’re talking about or why they’re talking about it.
It’s true that in English we don’t usually use the reflexive form of a pronoun (such as “myself”) unless it is bound by an earlier referent within the clause. But you certainly did not “mean” to say “Dennis Crowley and I.” “Dennis Crowley and me” is EXACTLY as grammatical in English as the alternative offered by the posters above. And your original wording, while not perfect, is Anyone who tells you otherwise is an asshole who is probably ignorant to boot.
You shouldn’t give in to these people so easily. They are completely clueless, blindly following “rules” that they somehow think will give them status as intellectuals. And they do this without the mildest knowledge of human language or its actual real world structure.
20. linguist | August 6th, 2008 at 12:55 am
before anyone scolds me for my internet typo, I accidently deleted “while not perfect, is completely acceptable.”
21. Mark | August 6th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Grammar should be an Olympic event.
[spends five minutes checking the above sentence prior to submission…]
22. Luuk | August 6th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Swim times, please! The comparison would be great. About the longjump: the world record is about 8,95 meters. “Dennis and himself” jumped about 13 feet, which is 4,26 meters. Not halfway there yet … these athletes are amazing.
Great idea to do the rings, that is absolutely the most incredible event in sports. The amount of muscle power needed is beyond any normal human being, and it has to be combined with great skill and control.
Final conclusion: we all run, and so the 100 m dash went actually pretty well. All the other events require skills no one usually trains. Apart from the rings, my guess is that each event can be learned up to decent level within four years.
Olympic level is another story .. should’ve started at age 8!
23. Christian Bovine | August 6th, 2008 at 11:52 am
100 meter Freestyle:
Christian’s Time = 1:18:10
Dennis = DQ for touching bottom of pool, thats illegal
Olympic Winner = 47:52
Long Jump
Christian = 14.1 Feet (4.3 meters)
Dennis = 13.7 Feet (4.17 meters)
Olympian = 8.95 meters
24. xtine | August 6th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Hi There,
I’ve been working on a project this summer that actually employs people to do what you did in this project! I’d love to have you share these videos on my site – where users can vote on the Gold winner for each of fifteen categories (including the Freestyle Swim and Hurdles). The rules are simple – anyone can sign up to be an Olympian and the instructions are available through Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk website (mturk.com).
To participate, you’d have to sign up to be a member of the Amazon “Mechanical Turk” workforce. There you can submit your videos to the appropriate HITs (tasks). Also, you’d have to add one slide to your video where you show us the country you represent and number through a downloaded PDF file that you print and tape to the performer (or just flash it at the beginning of the video).
Best,
x
25. erin | August 6th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
You guys rock. The hurdles always scared the shit out of me in high school track. You should do a winter version too–ice dancing and skeet shooting :)
26. par3182 | August 7th, 2008 at 9:21 am
what was the official olympic height for the hurdles? other than ridiculously high
well done on completing the events – i hurt myself just watching…
27. ??:????? » ?????vs?&hellip | August 7th, 2008 at 9:51 am
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28. David Bamford | August 7th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Not since George Plimpton joined the Detroit Lions for a play as guest quarterback was the uber-amateur athlete presented in such an entertaining way.
Kudos for guts and glory and the “human hurtle”.
29. ken | August 7th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Dens, very funny. Nice job.
BTW, you can definitely do the muscle up – you just need a bit of technique.
30. Trainharder.com » B&hellip | August 11th, 2008 at 12:27 am
[…] What happens when the average Jo tries to compete with the Olympic athlete? Two average but quite fit men try five separate Olympic events: 100m freestyle swim, 100 yard dash, 110 yard hurdles, long jump and rings. Watch the hilarious video and see how they stack up – http://5-in-5.com/2008/07/31/average-athlete-vs-olympic-athlete/ […]
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32. Geoffrey Richard » &hellip | August 15th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
[…] From Xtian : “Dennis Crowley and I spent all day doing 5 different Olympic Events: 100m freestyle, 100m dash, 110m hurdles, long jump and the rings (in gymnastics) and compared ourselves to Olympic athletes. This was to see just how amazing these athletes are in comparison to average Joes and as an excuse to do Olympic events all day.” « D’oh! var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”); document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”)); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-449814-2”); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); add_openid_to_comment_form() […]
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34. Average Athlete vs. Olymp&hellip | August 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
[…] and Dennis at 5-in-5 recently spent a day trying to see how well they could do at five Olympic events. When they were finished, they compared their results to those of Olympic athletes. Here’s […]
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36. cesimpson › High V&hellip | August 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 pm
[…] I saw this video today. It’s hilarious. Christian and Dennis, two regular athletes, compete in five Olympic events and compare their performance to actual Olympians. You’ll love it. […]
37. Can You Be An Olympian? |&hellip | August 28th, 2008 at 5:28 am
[…] Two average guys, Dennis and Christian decided as part of the 5 in 5 Challenge that they would see how they fared against Olympic athletes in 5 different events. You can read more about it at the 5in5.com blog. […]
38. backyard ni donglloyd | August 28th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Olympic athlete is quite fortunate than average athlete..but average athlete soon becomes olympic athlete