How Hard Do Olympic Athletes Work To Be In The Summer Olympics?

Earning a place in the Summer Olympics is usually difficult. In many sports, athletes must meet high standards in international competition to qualify. In other sports, they must earn their spot through intense qualifying competition in their homeland. For most Olympic athletes, it is their life's work. "It's unbelievable how much effort and how much work, not just over any one day but over the course of a lifetime these athletes put into it," Dr. David Geier, director of the Medical University of South Carolina Sports Medicine said in a 5min.com video. "You're talking about training for six, seven, eight hours a day for years, sometimes decades. Most of these athletes started at 6, 7, 8 years old in whatever their sport is."

The Olympic Landscape

The challenge of making an Olympic team varies by sport and by country. Superpowers such as the United States (110 medals won in 2008), China (100 medals won) and Russia (72 medals won) draw from enormous athletic pools to fill their Olympic rosters. Conversely, smaller countries often struggle to produce Olympic-caliber athletes. Haiti, the Republic of Guinea and the Republic of Togo were among the countries sending just one athlete to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics

Bigger Countries, Big Challenges

Competition for spots on the U.S. Olympic team is generally fierce. In track and field, for example, more than 1,000 American athletes qualified for the Olympic Trials in 2008, and 126 athletes made the team. These were the best of the best. The roster included 15 Olympic medalists and 31 World Outdoor Championships medalists. The depth of talent at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials was similarly impressive. In the 100-meter women's butterfly, for instance, 140 swimmers qualified for the event at the trials. In the 200-meter women's freestyle, 107 swimmers competed. The U.S. swimming team took 43 men and women to Beijing to compete.

Smaller Countries, Smaller Challenges

Some athletes might find an easier path to the Olympics by competing for a lesser national team. For instance, Taimuraz Tigiev wrestled for Russia earlier in his career. But the breakup of the old Soviet Union diversified the Eastern European wrestling scene. Several of the old Soviet states began fielding their own teams. Tigiev wrestled for Kazakhstan and won a silver medal. Other former Russian wrestlers who won medals for different nations included David Musulbes, Murad Gaidarov and Georgi Gogshelidze.

Classic Olympic Perseverance

Mark Warkentin was an all-America swimmer at the University of Southern California. He competed in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials but failed to make the team each time. So he switched to open-water swimming and earned his chance to represent his country in Beijing. "There's not a person in the world that thought I had a shot at the 2008 Olympics," he told "The Wall Street Journal." He trained hard throughout his distance-swimming career, but Warkentin dug even deeper for his new event. The high-altitude training in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was punishing. "When I was at the Santa Barbara Swim Club and at UCSB, I'd have other people to train with, but I've had to do a lot of it by myself up here," he told the "Santa Barbara News-Press." "It can be pretty difficult when you put your face into the water and tell yourself to swim hard for two hours with no one else there to endure the pain with you."

The Casualties of Competition

The challenge of making the Olympic team is also illustrated by those who fall just short despite their exhaustive training. American swimmer Dana Vollmer won Olympic gold in the 800-meter freestyle relay in 2004 but failed to make the team at the 2008 trials. She failed in four events: 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly. "This is pretty much the worst it could have gone," Vollmer told the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram." "I swam faster all summer, so it's pretty hard to come to trials and not even go near what you were doing when you were doing tons of yardage and heavy lifting."