Athena was born in full armour from the head of Zeus. She was known as the goddess of reason and handicraft. A severe, aloof goddess, Athena was the fierce protector of the city state of Athens. As you move through Olympus, look for this icon, identifying artworks depicting your god or goddess. Artemis was the goddess of hunting, the wilderness, and young animals.
She was an independent free spirit who protected the fruit of the earth as well as women in childbirth. Born out of the foam in the sea, Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty, procreation, and gardens. She excited passion in the hearts of gods and men alike. Zeus controlled the thunder, lightning, rain, and wind. Considered the father of gods and men, he was married to his sister Hera, but had many affairs and many children with other goddesses, nymphs, and maidens.
Son of Zeus, Dionysos was raised by mountain nymphs. Born from his father's thigh, he discovered how to make wine from grapes, and his followers would perform wild dances of ecstasy. Winnipeg Art Gallery Memorial Boulevard And then there's us normal, un-Olympian, less-than-spectacular people, watching from our couches, often in an air-conditioned room, sometimes with take-out in hand, entertaining the thought: Could I do this?
What kind of commitment, training, and stamina would it take really? Well, we have some answers for you. In , Forbes broke down the amount of training required for each sport , and a few seem reasonable enough okay, just hear me out. For example, cycling can take up to 10 years to master, but it can also take only three if you're willing to train 20 hours a week. Archery can take as little as four years to master. But if you're really operating under a time crunch, handball might be your best bet.
But if you're really committed to your illusions of grandeur, you could also gun for a few other specific roles within teams. As Splinter noted in , rowing isn't exactly easy — but the coxswain, who directs the team, doesn't actually row. According to Marcus McElhenney, a coxswain who won bronze at the Beijing Olympics in , some of the best ways to train include studying and learning everything there is to know about the sport.
If you can become a student of the sport, you might be golden, so to speak. Perhaps the easiest sport to try, though, might be cross-country skiing again, hear me out.
Just ask Paul Bragiel, the venture capitalist and self-proclaimed "chunky, out-of-shape computer nerd" who decided, in , that he had to achieve his childhood goal of qualifying for the Olympics. To do this, he told NPR that he looked at every team sport to decide which had the most flexible qualification rules, and determined they were downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, bobsled, and luge.
By process of elimination, he turned to cross-country skiing and even moved to Colombia to better his chances of qualifying. He didn't qualify, but he came pretty close.
Of course, there's more to take into consideration besides just training, lest we forget that Bragiel is a venture capitalist who was able to uproot his life and move to another continent to fulfill his Olympic dreams. Training is a financial commitment, and while many high-profile Olympic stars get sponsorships , newcomers — and athletes playing lesser-known sports — are left to budget for themselves.
And remember archery, which can require just four years of training? Running, meanwhile, is seen as the most affordable Olympic sport , but it's one of the hardest, too.
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