I think it is possible. And I’m going to work it out.

Last week when I was in Suffolk for my week off, I was sent an email from the local tennis club (the one that hosted the Thorpeness Open – check out last week’s blog here) about a charity event that was taking place. One of the families in the village has been fundraising by attempting to take part in every Olympic sport before the start of the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

However, this email prompted a discussion between myself, my mum and my girlfriend, where I claimed that I could do every Olympic sport within 24 hours. This claim was met with disbelief, as I was told that there’s “no chance” it would be possible.

So here we are, with me about to do the maths and work out whether or not it is possible.

Initial Observations

From the get-go, it is obvious the answer to this question is almost entirely dependent on how you define “doing” each sport.

For starters, at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, there were 31 sports and within these sports, there are 327 events i.e. 327 gold medals were given out. It would be impossible to complete all 327 events in one day and so I am going to have to group some of them together. For example, within the sport of tennis there are 5 events – men’s and women’s singles; men’s and women’s doubles; and mixed doubles.

On top of this, 8 of the 31 sports are divided into disciplines. For instance, the sport of swimming is divided into 5 disciplines – artistic swimming, diving, marathon swimming, swimming and water polo, which each have their own events.

This brings me to my first three observations:

1. To count as “doing” a sport, I do not have to participate in every event within that sport e.g. to “do” tennis I don’t need to play singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Just one event per sport will suffice.

2. In sports that are divided into disciplines, some disciplines will have to be grouped together if I believe that the general sport-watching population could not tell them apart e.g. wrestling is divided into two disciplines – freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling… I do not have to do both of these.

3. Swimming and athletics will be troublesome.

Swimming and Athletics

There are 83 different events involved in these two sports alone and a lot of these events are extremely different from each other. In swimming, there are 4 different strokes; in athletics, there are running, jumping and throwing events.

To tick swimming off the list as a sport, I think doing a 400m medley (100m each of freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly) counts as “doing” the sport.

Athletics is slightly more complicated. However, I think that completing a marathon and a decathlon would count as “doing” athletics. A decathlon consists of 100 m, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400 m, 110 m hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1500 m – running, jumping and throwing all ticked off here.

I also don’t believe it is right to complete this challenge without running a marathon.

If you don’t think this is a fair way of dealing with these two sports, let me know 😂.

Assumptions

A few assumptions need to be made for this imaginary challenge:

1. I am the one taking part in this imaginary challenge. My fitness, speed and strength is what I will use to estimate how long each event will take me to complete.

2. I have access to all the equipment needed to complete each sport and every sport is in the same place i.e. I don’t have to travel between sports.

3. I have one or two people with me at any time to help complete each sport.

4. I am not taking into account time for eating and rest. We will see at the end how much time (if any) I have left for this.

The Sports

Now that the rules have been laid out, here is a table of the 37 sports/disciplines that I will need to do to complete the challenge;

Archery	Football	Surfing
Athletics	Golf	Swimming
Badminton	Gymnastics – Artistic	Table Tennis
Basketball	Gymnastics – Trampoline	Taekwondo
Boxing	Handball	Tennis
Canoe Slalom	Judo	Triathlon
Cycling – BMX	Modern Pentathlon	Volleyball – Beach
Cycling – Road	Rowing	Volleyball – Indoor
Cycling – Track	Rugby Sevens	Water Polo
Diving	Sailing	Weightlifting
Equestrian	Shooting	Wrestling
Fencing	Skateboarding
Field Hockey	Sport Climbing

Ball Sports

12 of the 37 are ball sports and are probably going to be the quickest ones to tick off the list. To count as me doing these sports, I would play a shortened version of each one rather than playing a whole match or round. For example, playing a tiebreak rather than a best of five set match in tennis.

Badminton – Olympic badminton matches are best-of-three games with each game being first to 21 points. I would play one 21-point game of singles. 20 mins.

Basketball – With just one other person helping me with each sport, we obviously cannot play anything close to a real game of basketball, so, we would have a free throw competition. 10 mins.

Field Hockey – With any of the team sports on this list, it is impossible to play a full match, so the best solution to this, I think, is to do a penalty shootout. Penalty shootouts in hockey are particularly cool because you get to run at the goalkeeper one-on-one like MLS-style football penalty shootouts from the 90s. 10 mins.

Football – Another penalty shootout here. 10 mins.

Golf – I don’t think I would need to play a full round of golf to count as “doing” the sport, so I would just play 3 holes solo instead. To make the time shorter, I would run to each shot. 20 mins.

Handball – Another penalty shootout sport. Handball penalties look so cool. 10 mins.

Rugby Sevens – This is probably the first questionable decision I have had to make. Rugby is made up of so many different scenarios and phases, but with only myself and one other person to “do” the sport, I’ve had to choose a bit of a cop out option… a conversion kick shootout. I’m sorry. 10 mins.

Table Tennis – Olympic table tennis is best-of-five games, with each game being first to 11 points. I would play an 11-point game of singles. 15 mins.

Tennis – Ah, my bread and butter. It’s a bit tragic that I have to do this, but to save time I would play a tiebreak to 7. It’s a real shame, but I can’t waste extra time here. 10 mins.

Beach Volleyball – What a sport. Olympic rules are best-of-three sets to 21 points. I would play a 1v1 set to 21. 20 mins.

Indoor Volleyball – Similar to the above. One game to 25 points would be played. 20 mins.

Water Polo – The only Olympic ball sport I have never tried before, so I have no idea how difficult it would be. Again though, it would have to be a penalty shootout to count as doing this sport. 10 mins.

So, completing these 12 sports would take about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

12 down, 25 to go…

Timed or Distance Sports

The next group of sports are those that are inherently linked to a specific time or distance. I’ve grouped 8 sports into this category and while I have never done some of them before, I will be using my general cardiovascular fitness as a guide to how long I think each one would roughly take.

Canoe slalom – I have canoed before but never done a slalom. I would hop into the canoe and launch myself down the rapids – I don’t think I would be able to reach any of the backwards gates, but getting to the bottom wouldn’t take me too long. 10 mins.

Cycling (BMX Racing) – This is a 400m course with straights, turns and hills. The actual Olympic races are rapid and super fun to watch. My attempt probably would not be. 5 mins.

Cycling (Road) – There are two road cycling events in the Olympics – the road race and the time trial. The road race is 250 km; the time trial is 22.1 km. I’m sure some people will disagree with me, but I think completing the 22.1 km time trial is sufficient to say I’ve “done” road cycling. The gold medal time in 2020 was 55:04. I think I could do it in about 90 mins.

Cycling (Track) – There are 12 Olympic track cycling events, but they are all very similar. My favourite event is the Keirin, which is a 1500m cat and mouse race. It’s the event where they all start really slowly, looking over their shoulders at the riders behind, until someone bolts off and everyone else has to try to catch them. Great event. 10 mins.

Rowing – We’re beginning to enter the unknown zone a bit now. I have rowed a bit before but I’m hardly Steve Redgrave. This would be a 2000m single scull race – the gold medal time in 2020 was 6:40, so I am guessing this would take me about 20 minutes. Who knows. 20 mins.

Sailing – This is a complete unknown. I have never sailed in my life. The Olympic sailing events are all very difficult for me to understand, let alone for me to explain in this blog, so I’ve set the goal for this sport to be a one kilometre sail. I think this would take me 30 minutes or even longer depending on how windy it is. 30 mins.

Sport Climbing – Thanks to Magnus Midtbø, I started bouldering a few months ago and I absolutely love it. Olympic climbing comprises 3 events – bouldering, lead and speed. The speed climbing is phenomenal viewing. I would challenge myself to complete 3 (not very difficult) boulders. 15 mins.

Triathlon – This is a big one. A 1.5 km swim, followed by a 40 km cycle and a 10 km run. The 2020 gold medal time was 1 hour 45 minutes, so I think a good time for me to aim for would be around 3 hours.

These 8 sports alone would add around 6 hours onto the time.

Miscellaneous Sports

These next 15 sports are where I begin to encounter all sorts of trouble for two reasons; firstly, I haven’t done most of them before; and secondly, because I have so little knowledge on them, it’s difficult for me to define what counts as “doing” each sport.

But we crack on nonetheless.

Archery – I shot a few arrows when I was 11 years old on a school trip. Since then I have shot none. This will be a best-of-three sets match with each set consisting of three arrows. 20 mins.

Boxing – I’ve never boxed but at least I have some knowledge of this sport. A sparring session (so that I don’t get concussed for the other sports) of three 2 minute rounds is what I would do. 15 mins.

Diving – There will be no twists in the air for me here. If I manage to conjure up the courage to jump off of a 10-metre platform, I’m counting that as diving. 5 mins.

Equestrian – I’m in big trouble here. There’s dressage, eventing and jumping disciplines in equestrian, all three of which I will not be able to do properly as I have never ridden a horse in my life. Therefore, my goal for this sport would be to do half an hour of horse riding. 30 mins.

Fencing – While I’ve never held an epee, I like to think I would be able to give fencing a good crack, mainly because of my long arms. This would be a first to 10 touches bout with my opponent. 10 mins.

Gymnastics (Artistic) – Pfft. Where to begin with this. I think attempting the pommel horse, rings, vault and parallel bars would count as “doing” gymnastics, although the level of execution would likely be very low. 30 mins.

Gymnastics (Trampoline) – Similar to the above, not really sure where to begin. Getting on an Olympic trampoline and attempting some flips would hopefully be sufficient to say I’ve “done” trampolining. 20 mins.

Judo – Olympic judo matches last 4 minutes so I think I could bluff my way through a match for that short amount of time despite not having much of a clue of what I’m doing. 4 mins.

Modern Pentathlon – Consisting of a fencing competition; a 200m freestyle swim; a 350m show jumping course; and a 3.2km cross country/pistol shooting run, this is another tough one. Hopefully I would be given a good horse who would carry me through the show jumping without much input from myself. 1 hour.

Shooting – This would be a 25 target Olympic skeet i.e. I would have 25 clay pigeons to try and hit. I don’t think my score would be very high, but I would complete the event. Pull! 20 mins.

Skateboarding – I tried to learn to skateboard when I was about 8 but didn’t get anywhere. There are park and street events at the Olympics, with boarders getting three 45 second runs to perform tricks of varying difficulty. I would do three runs in a skatepark to complete this sport. 10 mins.

Surfing – I think this would be the hardest sport of the entire challenge for me. I don’t like the sea and I’ve only managed to stand up on a paddle board once or twice before so I don’t fancy my chances here. If I manage to stand up on the surfboard at any point in a 30 minute window here, I will take that. 30 mins.

Taekwondo – Similar to judo, but rounds only last 2 minutes. I could bluff my way through this I’m sure. 2 mins.

Weightlifting – For my tennis I lift weights but I don’t weightlift. Weightlifting is made up of two lifts – the snatch, and the clean and jerk. I don’t really do these two exercises but I can when needed. 3 snatches and 3 clean and jerks at fairly low weights will be me “doing” this sport. 20 mins.

Wrestling – I have the choice here between freestyle or Greco-Roman wrestling. I’m going to go with the freestyle option, where matches last for 6 minutes. I’ll have to use all of the knowledge I gained from watching WWE as a kid. 6 mins.

These 15 miscellaneous sports would take around 4 hours and 45 minutes to do.

Swimming

The 2020 Olympic gold medal time for the 400m individual medley was 4:09, set by Chase Kalisz of the United States.

First of all, I’m not sure I would be able to complete the whole 400m in one go, let alone in a time anywhere near Chase’s. I think I would be able to swim 100m of each stroke in a time between 90 seconds and 2 minutes. This would mean, depending on how much rest I would need, it would take me around 10-15mins to complete the medley.

Athletics

The winner of the Olympic decathlon is unofficially given the title of “World’s Greatest Athlete” as it is viewed as the completest all-round test of athleticism. It consists of 100 m, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400 m, 110 m hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1500 m.

My estimated time to complete each discipline is below;

100 m – 13 seconds

Long jump – 5 attempts – 10 mins

Shot put – 5 attempts – 10 mins

High jump – 5 attempts – 10 mins

400m – 1 min

110m hurdles – 30 seconds

Discus throw – 5 attempts – 10 mins

Pole vault – 5 attempts – 10 mins

Javelin throw – 5 attempts – 10 mins

1500m – 5 mins

Total time – 1 hour and 10 mins

The final sport to consider in this challenge is the longest of them all – the marathon. I don’t think this challenge could be considered accomplished without the completion of a marathon. Eliud Kipchoge, one of my sporting idols, holds the official world record at 2:01:09 and is also the only person to break the 2-hour barrier, when he ran 1:59:40 at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna.

I don’t think Eliud needs to be worried about the threat of me breaking his record, however, I would be aiming to complete the run in somewhere between 4 and 5 hours.

Overall Time

All in all, completing every Olympic sport would take just over 20 hours of active time, not taking rest or eating time into account. That would give me 4 hours across the whole day to rest and recover in between sports.

The toughest sports to complete would definitely be the longest ones – the marathon, triathlon and the road cycling. However, a few of the other sports such as gymnastics, equestrian and surfing, which I have absolutely zero knowledge about, could also be big hurdles.

Obviously this whole blog has basically been a discussion about how you define “doing a sport” and I’m sure a lot of people reading this will disagree with a lot of the ways I’ve done some of the sports.

If you had to just do every men’s event in athletics, you would have to walk/run a total of 135 km. This would be on top of the 234 km cycling road race; the 10 km marathon swim; and the 14 km of rowing you would need to do to complete every event in just those 3 sports. So, if someone defined “doing” every Olympic sport as having to complete every event within each sport, suddenly the time needed increases almost exponentially.

But that’s the point of the question. The answer varies depending on your point of view.

And in my point of view, I could do them all in a day.