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Can a football player run faster than a

professional runner?

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10 Answers

Rocco Kittson, Consultant / Contractor at U.S.

Department of Defense
Answered December 5, 2019 · Author has 375 answers and
361.5K answer views

Professional Runner? Do you mean marathoner? Do you

mean sprinter? Iron man running / biking / swimming
contestant?

It really depends on the event and the answer would

have to be sport specific.
Open
See below at what might bein App way to look at
a helpful
this:

American NFL running back vs. Olympic

sprinter: Running back is indeed very quick
for the sport of American football, though heʼs
not as quick and lacks the same top speed as
an Olympic sprinter.

On the flip side , the man who is built for and

trains only for the sprint, would lack the body
mass of the NFL running back, which is
needed to run smack dab into and hopefully
over top of another athlete weighing anywhere
from 225 - 300+ lbs.

Running into, bouncing off of, or trampling

your opponent being your goal means you
train for that as a running back… So instead of
only training for explosive speed in short
bursts, the running back needs to work with
his upper body , neck, back and shoulder
muscles much more than the sprinter - of
course since these attributes wont only make
him hit harder and push further, they also quite
literally keep him from becoming completely
demolished after a single game..or even a
single down or two.

Marathon runner vs European Footballer:

The marathon man can go non- stop forever it
seems. The competitive / professional
marathon runner would win against footballers
in a distance race hands down. Though there
may be some footballers who at one time
might have given a contest…the training to run
for 30–40 miles at slow/medium pace simply
isnʼt conducive to soccer/football.

The marathoner will generally lack the agility

and athleticism to stop on a dime, pivot, pass,
shoot etc. More to the point, the marathoner
would lack the conditioning to enable him to
sprint, then slow jog, then mid range, then
sprint, then jump, then back to slow job etc
that a professional footballer must have to
compete at their level.

464 views · View 1 Upvoter

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Other Answers

Christian Nelson, studied International Relations

Answered March 29, 2019 · Author has 483 answers and
3.1M answer views

Meh, they can be comparably fast in a short dash.

The likes of Theo Walcott and Hector Bellerin used to

run 40m dashes in the 4.4–4.7 seconds area, which is
roughly the same as practically all modern Olympic
record breakers -even Usain Bolt, whose actual -
competitive- 40m dash time was around 4.6 seconds.

For outright speed though, there's no contest; Olympic

sprinters far outpace footballers. The apparent fastest
footballer in the world today is Gareth Bale with a
maximum speed of 37km/h, compared to 41–44km/h
clocked by Olympic sprinters (even though one runs on
grass and the other on a hard surface, thatʼs quite a
difference).

But then again, footballers are trained more for agility

than speed. That's why in a zig-zagging course, some
footballers like Christiano Ronaldo can actually beat
sprinters.

Christiano Ronaldo vs 100m Champion Runner:

Sprinters invest a whole lotta time and energy

perfecting their running technique; how to run, how to
move the legs, arms and body, how to strike the ground
with the feet to maximise power delivery so on and so
forth, not to mention the bulk of muscle they need to
develop to maximise strength. All of which is really not
a consideration for a footballer.

An athletic person on the left, sprinter on the right. The

guy on the left delivers force equal to 3 times his body
weight with each strike of his foot, compared to the
sprinterʼs 5 times his body weight. The sprinter also
does it at a much faster rate, all thanks to his technique
and muscle mass.

In fact, an elite Olympic sprinter is probably too heavy

and bulky to be a good athletic performer on the
football pitch.
5.8K views · View 22 Upvoters

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Elangkumaran J, I train, therefore I am

Answered February 3, 2019 · Author has 134 answers and
1.2M answer views

Can a football player run faster than a professional

runner?

Fortunately, we have an actual answer to this - Yes

AND No

On a continuous path, a professional runner will run

circles around the footballer (pun intended).
However, when you introduce changes in direction, the
footballer would kick the runnerʼs ass.

Fabio shared an example of how a retired Usain Bolt

tied the NFL combine record wearing tracks and
sneakers. The first 30m is actually a weakness for him
.
Read that again - on his weakest stretch, a retired
runner tied the record set by NFL athletes in their
prime. All while wearing improper equipment.

Well, you might counter with the fact that Bolt was the
best sprinter the world has ever seen.

Let me use an easier benchmark - The fastest

footballer in the world lost a sprint to the Spanish
100m champion [1].

Angel David Rodriguez ran 25 m in 3.31sec, while

Christiano Ronaldo did it in 3.61sec - a 10% slower
speed.

On the other hand, when you break the course into a

zig-zag format, the results are quite different.

Ronaldo ran this in 6.35sec, when Angel took 6.86sec

to finish it. 8% better.

In summary professional runners have great speed on

on continuous paths, because that is what they are
supposed to do.
Footballers can be very fast when you need to change
direction as well. Again, this is why they are paid the big
bucks.

[1] Christiano Ronaldo - Tested to the Limit

1.5K views · View 8 Upvoters

Michael Woloch, Consulting Engineer (1998-

present)
Answered November 21, 2019 · Author has 4.8K answers
and 6.8M answer views

American football or “international” football - aka

soccer?

Renaldo Nehemiah was the #1 rated athlete in 110m

hurdles, holder of the world record, and having the
misfortune of missing the 1980 Olympics due to the US
boycott. He played in the NFL for three years, having a
great average per catch, but not being a good pass
catcher.

Henry Ellard qualified for the triple jump for the 1992
Olympics but was injured, then played for 17 seasons in
the NFL.

Willie Gault qualified for the 1980 Olympics in the 100m

dash, and held the record for the 4 x 100m relay in
1983. He was a star player for both the Bears and
Raiders.

Robert Griffin III was one of the best junior athletes in

the world in the 110m, 300m and 400m hurdles. He
continued to break national records in the 400m
hurdles while playing QB in college, winning the
Heisman trophy, and drafted 2nd overall, enjoying
success until he was injured, repeatedly.

Lastly, Ron Brown won gold in the 4 x 100m relay in the

1984 Olympics before a 7-year career in the NFL.

What does this mean? There are many football players

who had crossover success as track athletes in various
sprint races. But speed is not the only skill in football,
and often some of the best would-be track athletes are
enticed into other sports because of those other sports
being more popular and lucrative. But being world-
class in either of these means specialized training, and
after a few years of doing only one (or the other), they
wonʼt be crossover athletes anymore.
360 views · View 1 Upvoter

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Fábio Schubert Gelbcke, I ran a 2s33 marathon

(Valencia 2019)
Answered February 3, 2019 · Author has 576 answers and
1.1M answer views

No chance.

Just an anecdotal proof: today, Usain Bolt ran a 4.22

40m dash to equal the NFL all time record.

2 years after retiring.

In sweatpants and trainers.

And Boltʼs start was never great, his strength was

always having a very high top speed and being able to
sustain it longer than his competitors in the last 50m of
the race. The first 40m was actually his “weakness”.

Footballers would be the same as NFL players. Put

them in any Diamond League 100m final and they would
just be confused by those blurs speeding by them.

Pictured: Bolt and Andre de Grasse laughing at your

suggestion.
166.7K views · View 6.4K Upvoters · View Sharers

Manan Pandya, former Student

Answered July 16, 2017 · Author has 57 answers and 300K
answer views

Simply put Yes.

Cristiano Ronaldo is quite an agressive football player

and is often seen sprinting up the field. One of his
impressive sprints includes covering a 100m in about 10
seconds.

The qualifying time for South American and Ocenia

Area have been 10s and 9.93 seconds respectively. If
Ronaldo were to say properly trained, he wouldnʼt have
any problem getting into the qualifiers.

Having said that every decrease in second is hard to

achieve thereafter. The difference between the first and
last in a 100m sprint is not even 1s. That is where
Ronaldo would hit a wall. Sure a footballer can be
comparable to the professional atheletes but winning is
surely out of question.
1.2K views · View 3 Upvoters

John Hulslander, 1,000 mile plus a year runner.

Taekwondo black belt. All this with bad knees.
Answered April 4, 2019 · Author has 140 answers and
74.3K answer views

I would think it would depend on the professional

runner.

Eliud Kipchogee is the greatest marathoner alive and it

isnʼt even close.

But at short distances how would he do?

If my math is correct at his best marathon pace

Kipchogee is running 40 yard dash in about 6.3
seconds. In the NFL that is not particularly fast.

That being said, Kipchogee can most assuredly run the

40 yard dash a lot faster, but can he get it to under 4.5
seconds. I donʼt honestly know. Maybe?

But the vast majority of sprinters are going to be a LOT

faster than the fastest NFL player.
410 views

Abhishek Yadav, Student

Updated November 23, 2017

Put it simply or in any other way, a footballer never ran

faster than a professional sprinter till date.

Those who say that Cristiano run 100m in 10 sec is not

looking at the whole picture. If someone ran 100m on a
football ground,he would reach from one goalpost to
another.

You may see many people claims that he or she can run
faster than Bolt whose possibility is 1 in 1000.

Footballers are trained so that their acceleration is

higher than a sprinter but their top speed is less than a
sprinter.

What I mean is that many footballers can beat Bolt in a

30m race but nobody can beat him in 100m.
1.8K views · View 11 Upvoters

Ron Todd
Answered February 3, 2019 · Author has 709 answers and
42.3K answer views

To go by the actual data, Ronaldo is about 10% slower

than an average international sprinter, from the only
reliable data thatʼs available. That would make him
close to international standard for a woman sprinter,
but nowhere near making the semi-finals for any
womenʼs sprint even at world level. A “good club
sprinter”, in womenʼs athletics, would be as close as we
can come to rating him without further information.

(I trained with 3 athletes this morning, out of a group of

10, who would comfortably beat Ronaldo. They are not
specialist sprinters.)
568 views · View 3 Upvoters

Scott Soloway, Degree in math and physics but

majored in pinball
Answered April 1, 2019 · Author has 4.2K answers and
4.9M answer views

In a 40 yard dash many football players would beat

professional marathon runners.

If you find this answer nonresponsive please edit the

question to reflect your intentions.
37 views

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