Cristiano Ronaldo is renowned as one of the fastest footballers on the planet.

Even at the age of 35, the Juventus superstar has immense acceleration and still looks capable of skinning the fastest defenders in a sprint.

Down the years, many football fans have pondered whether Ronaldo could cut the mustard alongside professional sprinters.

Back in 2011, Ronaldo was pitted against professional Spanish sprinter Angel David Rodriguez over a 30m distance in a documentary entitled 'Cristiano Ronaldo: Tested to the Limit'.

Ronaldo was a full 0.3 seconds behind Rodriguez and at the time, the Portuguese was in his physical prime at the age of 26.

Now, Rodriguez has spoken more about his day training with the ex-Real Madrid man and has revealed how fast he thinks Ronaldo could run the 100m.

In Juan Carlos Higuero’s programme 'At Home with Athletes", Rodriguez explained, per AS: "I was doing a report on race technique with Cristiano Ronaldo. You had to run in various styles to demonstrate differences in race technique between a sprinter and a footballer."

Rodriguez revealed that Ronaldo absolutely smashed him in the diagonal races, with the sprinter adding: “He is fast and very good at lateral movements. He clearly trains a lot.

“This was the trap they set for me, to start running diagonally. It’s like making a sprinter play paddle tennis."

But when it came to the straight race, Ronaldo was no match for the Spaniard.

"I took three tenths from him, which is quite a lot," Rodriguez quipped. "If it was 100 metres, he may be able to get 11.60."

That prediction is quite eye-opening. To us mere mortals, 11.60 seconds is lightning-quick but in the professional sporting world, that time is simply not good enough.

Proof - if you ever really did need it - that no matter how fast footballer look from sitting in the stands or on television, they won't be lining up on the Olympic running track anytime soon.