How versatile are the world’s greatest athletes?
Ashton Eaton and, now, Roman Sebrle want to find out.
Last month, the 2012 Olympic decathlon champion Eaton said he would train for the 400m hurdles next year.
2004 Olympic decathlon champion Roman Sebrle is going off the track altogether. The Czech, recently retired from 10-event training, has taken up golf and would like to return to the Olympics in 2020, according to reports from his home nation.
In 2009, Sebrle told Spikes magazine that he wanted Olympic gold in golf and believed he could “come close to PGA level.”
Could Sebrle possibly become an Olympic golfer at age 45 in 2020?
Sebrle is a three handicap, according to a Czech report. A reader poll on the Czech website sport.cz revealed 52 percent of voters believed he would not make the Olympics in golf.
The current qualification system for Olympic golf favors athletes from nations without many high-ranked golfers. The Olympic golf tournament, in 2016 at least, will include 60 men.
The top 15 players in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) automatically go as long as there isn’t more than four per nation.
The rest of the field is filled by the OWGR of players from countries that do not already have two golfers.
If the Olympics used today’s rankings, the lowest-ranked golfer to qualify would be around No. 400. There are no Czech golfers in the OWGR, which ranks more than 1,500 golfers.
