Cristiano Ronaldo's sprint time vs the general public in 25-metre challenge | OneFootball

Cristiano Ronaldo gobbles up the yards quicker than almost every player on a football pitch.

Even though the Manchester United star is no longer a spring chicken at 37 years old, his relentless dedication to fitness and conditioning has allowed him to maintain his electrifying pace.

Sure, he’d probably be eating Adama Traore and Kylian Mbappe’s dust if it came to a straight-up footrace, but we’d still back Ronaldo to outrun a good 95% of defenders at the highest level.

Ronaldo’s physical prowess

And given that Ronaldo has proven time and time again that there’s an elite sprinter deep inside of him, there has always been a great deal of speculation about how quickly he can actually run.

Yes, there are rough hand-time examples of Ronaldo’s pace during games, but there is a distinct lack of evidence and data when it comes to his speed in a regulated environment.

That is, however, with the exception of one critical example because Ronaldo did indeed give the world some level of insight into his physical capabilities during a fascinating 2011 documentary called: “Ronaldo: Tested to the Limit.”

No doubt you’ve watched clips from the programme already with Ronaldo testing everything from his shot power, instincts in the penalty area and jumping height during his prime at Real Madrid.

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When Ronaldo raced over 25m

But the clip that has unquestionably done the rounds the most is Ronaldo’s sprinting challenge up against the then 100-metre champion of Spain: Angel David Rodríguez.

Ronaldo went head-to-head with the two-time Olympian over 25 metres, eventually clocking a time of 3.61 seconds that fell comfortably short of 3.31 seconds that Rodríguez posted.

It was a clear demonstration that although Ronaldo and footballers generally are undoubtedly rapid that they cannot compete with athletes who specialise entirely in running as quickly as possible.

The general public vs Ronaldo’s time

So, sure, we knew from that moment that Ronaldo couldn’t match an elite sprinter, but how would the United star compare to, say, a member of the general public over the same distance?

Well, fear not, because that’s exactly the question that the F2Freestylers sought to answer this week by setting up the exact same test that Ronaldo attempted in the centre of London.

Having previously gone viral for testing the general public’s ability to jump as high as Ronaldo, it was all about sprinting this time around with special speed gates set up to nail the 25-metre distance and timings.

There might not have been the scientists, blocks and Olympic sprinters milling around like in 2011, but the F2 nevertheless had all the gear and all the idea to put Ronaldo’s time to the test.

And would any of the wandering Londoners be able to dip below 3.61 seconds and run faster than Ronaldo? Well, be sure to check out the video down below to find out:

By the skin of his teeth! That lad at the end was absolutely rapid.

Ronaldo’s time is beaten, in the end

In what proved to be a telling experiment, almost every member of the public found themselves either miles behind Ronaldo’s clocking or a few fair tenths of a second – still a large margin in sprinting – off the pace.

But in the end, it spokes volumes that it was somebody with track and field experience that was able to lean into their sprinting technique and dip below Ronaldo’s time by merely 0.01 seconds.

As such, the lad can proudly head home tonight and declare that he’s faster than one of the greatest athletes to have ever lived… kind of.

Look, Ronaldo is an elite athlete and there’s very good reason to think that he could easily improve upon his time of 3.61 seconds if he was given more than one attempt and just a day’s worth of sprint coaching.

At the end of the day, the type of speed that Ronaldo needs to channel on a football pitch is vastly different to the kind that sprinters need to harness on the track.

And that was abundantly clear in the documentary that sparked all this speed business because Ronaldo proceeded to wipe the floor with Rodríguez when they covered 25 metres in a zig-zag course.

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So, be sure to take the experiment with a pinch of salt, but at the same time, we can’t deny the guy his victory because doing anything better than Ronaldo under any circumstances is still incredible.