Link's list of accolades includes saving Hyrule countless times over, defeating evil incarnate, and even getting involved in local elections around Hateno village. Now, YouTuber Windowledge has challenged The Legend of Zelda's fabled hero Link to the ultimate test of fitness: could Link win an Olympic gold medal in the decathlon?
With the Summer 2024 Olympics behind us, the world is now looking to Link to see if he could beat the gold medal times across the 10 events of a decathlon recreated inside of Tears of the Kingdom. Coordinates found at the bottom of the minimap were used to roughly estimate the distance for events like the 100 meter dash. Windowledge would then use these indicators to reference Link's times against those of Olympic gold medalists to determine if our fated Hyrule hero was up to the task.
For this challenge, It was important to not give Link any performance-enhancing drugs, so Windowledge ensured no elixirs or additional potions were used to juice the stats. The only bonus Link was allowed was that of a good night's rest, which gives you a small bonus stamina wheel. Nothing is stopping Olympic athletes from getting their eight hours of rest, except maybe those cardboard beds in the Olympic village.
As it turns out, Tears of the Kingdom's sandbox approach to gameplay allows for a pretty smooth decathlon setup. Using a clever combination of boxes and some ingenuity with Ultrahand, Windowledge created a solid Olympic games arena that could give Paris 2024 a run for its money.
The Lomei Labyrinth was home to most of the events as it offered a nice flat runway for the 100- and 400-meter dash. Its floor grid pattern also serves as another marker to help track distance, with one floor block being roughly five meters.
Unfortunately, Link is not very fast, as sprinting using a fully maxed stamina wheel and the sleep bonus bar only gives him a 100-meter dash time of 12.7 seconds, which is roughly two and a half seconds slower than the decathlon first place time held by Canadian runner Damian Warner. Hopes weren't high for the 400-meter dash, where Link likewise placed about eight seconds lower than Puerto Rican runner Ayden Owens-Delerme, solidifying that Link can go the distance, but his max speed is just sort of average.
Now it's time to add hurdles, which Windowledge created with two wooden beams attached to a small wooden sheet. As you may imagine, adding hurdles didn't do anything to help Link's performance: he came in dead last with a time of 15.16 seconds, almost two seconds behind gold medalist Warner.
However, the shot put is where Link really shines. This is mainly because Link can throw everything the same distance regardless of the weight of the object. With that in mind, Windowledge determined that the closest object in weight that Link could throw is a chunk of Luminous rock. A chunk of Topaz was in the running to replace the Shot Put but, as Windowledge notes, "it explodes on impact and electrifying an official will get Link disqualified."
It turns out Link was built for the shot put. He threw this thing 35 meters, which is more than double the first place decathlon Olympian at 16 meters, proving that Link is strong if nothing else. Now we would love to see him go up against the Moblins who are apparently really good at basketball if given the right equipment
Discus proves to be a bit of a challenge for Link, as the ability to throw everything the same distance actually hurts him on this event. Since most objects don't catch wind the way a disc does, he only finishes with 41.50 meters, putting him squarely in the middle of the pack. He does make up for it in the javelin throw, chucking a spear 81 meters, capturing first place and 1058 total points.
Events involving jumping get a little tricky, as Link's backflip is more consistent than anything else. While a little unorthodox, backflipping over the bar for the high jump event was the way to go. Using a traveler's spear stuck into a piece of wood, Link backflipped his way to the bottom of the leaderboards with a max jump height of 1.62 meters. It's a far cry from Heath Baldwin's 2.17 first place position. For the long jump, Windowledge use the mid-air shield jump to gain a bit of extra ground. "The ethics of this are, I'll admit, a little bit questionable," he admits. In fairness, I would shield-jump if I could.
Of course, there's no real way to recreate the pole vault event, so Windowledge redid the high jump, but "since pole vault involves a prop, I'm allowing myself to use the shield-jump again." However, as expected, Link didn't even come close to a good score. He placed dead last at 2.56 meters, not even half of what first-place Janek Oiglane scored.
The final event of the decathlon is the 1,500-meter sprint. As we already know, Link does not excel at running-based events, but this time could be different. With a current total of 7,690 points in previous events, Link would need a 1,500-meter time of 3 minutes and 39 seconds to take home the gold medal.
After a harrowing sprint around Lomei Labyrinth, Link is the undisputed decathlon gold medalist, coming in with a time of 3 minutes and 23 seconds for a total score of 8930. This puts him 134 points above Paris 2024 medalist Markus Rooth.
While some players want to see Link compete at peak performance, others are recreating Metal Slug tanks to destroy the world.
Link has no shortage of things to do, so check out our guide to everything in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
