Is table tennis THE hardest sport to go professional in?

[NetProphet]

I agree to a level because sprinters are incredible, it’s a sport that takes lots of dedication and hard work and you can still be limited by genetics no matter the work load. In terms of hardest to become no1 in the world or greatest of all time then it’s probably in my top 5 with pole vault and a few others. But the question is whether table tennis is the hardest to become professional and make a career out of. Many track athletes can make a career out of what they do somewhat easily and there are other ways. I don’t know if you know about the enchanted games but for the 100m some not enchanted sprinter won something like 100k dollars just by running a sub 10. This is not a fast time in professional sprinting standards and probably thousands of runners have run a sub 10 but the prize pot is still huge!!!

I've heard of the enhanced games but I abhor it so I paid it no attention whatsoever.
With that said perhaps I am ignorant to income streams in that regard.
But that aside I still reckon making a living as a sprinter is the hardest. The rewards at the top are bigger than TT (Nike gives huge contracts to the big names) but you have 5-6 top years (after you've matured physically to peak) and then it's typically downward and injuries.
If you're world top 20 in TT over 10-15 yrs you've likely made a good living.
I don't know what the correct answer is to your question but it's an interesting Q for sure.
Perhaps the answer is Curling?
I can't imagine there's much money or opportunity to grow that sport!!

 

[lightspin]

Also I would bet a rather large sum of money you can start kayaking late in life and still have a chance to go pro. In table tennis if you start at 19 you have a 0% chance of going pro. The current theory in table tennis is it is best to start at age 2 like Harimoto, Matsushita and the Lebruns to name a few.