re: What sport is easiest to excel in?

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This was my first thought as well, but it also requires OP to define what he means by excel. If it's just to be good/great at a sport, then distance running is probably the easiest. If it's to be one of the best in the world, or D-1 level; then it would probably need to be one of the skilled competitions that somehow get lumped into sports.

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As to any running event, I can see how it's "approachable" in the sense that with reasonable effort most people can become competent at it. It doesn't require hyper specialized training or equipment or size or strength, etc.

But to become an elite runner, you're competing in a huge pool, and statistically it probably becomes one of the hardest to excel at.

Any sport where people can reasonably play without a lot of obstacles (size, equipment, location) is going to be very hard to be elite obviously, simply because you'll be competing with so many people. It's why it's threading a needle to play basketball in the US - every one of us knew some kid who was a great ball handler or could shoot lights out in pickup games but couldn't sniff a HS team because of the competition/size/etc. components. It's just too big a pool. Whereas if you're 6'3 225 at 16, they're going to find a role for you on a varsity FB team unless you're just completely unathletic.