WHICH IS MORE IMPRESSIVE? Gold medal in Olympic luge or All-American in D1 cross country?

Leanermeaner · 2010-02-26T09:20:45-05:00

I just read this article in the NYTimes entitled: "Two Worlds of Sliding Sports, for the Haves and the Have-Nots" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/sports/olympics/26sliding.html?ref=sports The point I take from it is that in many of the winter Olympic sports, there are extremely few people that have ever made a serious attempt to excel. Maybe a few thousand people in Germany and Austria actively pursue luge - the rest of us don't have the opportunity or the interest. I don't mean to only pick on luge - it's probably the same story for skeleton, bobsled, ski jumping, and (maybe) curling, isn't it? By contrast, being an All-American in cross country indicates you're one of the top 40 (I think) athletes in a sport that has a huge base of potential, about 40K runners in US high school plus foreign talent. I'd say it's more impressive. One could probably also say that being a starter on D1 college basketball team is also more impressive than winning gold in one of these odd sports. Thoughts on this? I guess if I really wanted a good debate I should have posted this on letsluge.com. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find it...

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16 years ago 02/26/2010 10:05pm EST

re: hyperbole gone wild

And here is your list of summer Olympic sports (we'll compare cross country to other sports in the summer Olympics since summer is where cross country would go if it were an Olympic sport):

* Archery

* Athletics

* Badminton

* Baseball

* Basketball

* Boxing

* Canoeing

* Cycling

* Diving

* Equestrian

* Fencing

* Field Hockey

* Football (Soccer)

* Gymnastics

* Handball

* Judo

* Modern Pentathlon

* Rowing

* Sailing

* Shooting

* Softball

* Swimming

* Synchronized Swimming

* Table Tennis

* Taekwondo

* Tennis

* Triathlon

* Volleyball

* Water Polo

* Weightlifting

* Wrestling

Archery - cross country is probably more widely competed than archery

Athletics - cross country is a subdivision of athletics

Badminton - cross country wins unless you count playing in your backyard and at family reunions

Baseball - in the US, baseball probably wins, on a world level, cross country probably wins

Basketball - cross country loses

Boxing - in the US, cross country is much more common, this probably extends to the world level as well

Canoeing - excluding recreational canoeing, cross country wins easily

Cycling - I'm guessing at least forms of biking have more widespread competition than cross country, but certainly not velodrome racing.

Diving - easily more competition in cross country. Diving is worldwide, but too gymnastic in its roots to have large participation anywhere

Equestrian - if you don't count every person who ever rode a horse, you'll find far more people competing in cross country worldwide

Fencing - you're kidding me, right?

Field Hockey - this hoity-toity sport has far less worldwide competition than cross country

Soccer - okay, this one dominates cross country

Gymnastics - are we talking eight-year-old girls or athletes in their early 20s?

Handball - on a serious, organized level, far more competition in cross country

Judo - I don't have a good read on this one, especially outside of the US

Modern Pentathlon - incorporates cross country, and no way its bigger than cross country

Rowing - not a chance its bigger than cross country, too exclusive

Sailing - ditto rowing, only more so

Shooting - recreationally, probably bigger than cross country, but not on an organized, competitive level

Softball - big in US, not so much elsewhere as evidenced by the trend of Olympic medals

Swimming - the whole is bigger than cross country

Synchronized Swimming - heh, heh

Table Tennis - maybe bigger in many nations, not sure how it would compare on an international level

Taekwondo - see Judo

Tennis - recreational or competitive and organized? If the latter, cross country is bigger

Triathlon - a great sport for habitually injured runners with disposable income

Volleyball - maybe bigger than cross country considered as a whole, but the parts (and especially on the men's side) are not as big on an organized level

Water Polo - probably not as big as cross country on an international level, at least partly due to expense of monopolizing a pool

Weighlifting - Outside of the Olympics, how often do you see people competing in snatch and clean-and-jerk?

Wrestling - I would guess this one is bigger on the international level--very big in eastern Europe and Asia, respectably big in North America.

16 years ago 02/26/2010 10:22pm EST

re: orange juice

orange juice wrote:
Would you rather be the best hockey player in slovakia (7 000 players) or the german hockey equivalent of an all-American in D1 cross country (Germany has 70 000 players)?

Definitely would rather be Marian Hossa

16 years ago 02/26/2010 10:32pm EST

re: hyperbole gone wild

If cross country was in the Olympics, what nations could be counted on to field teams?

definitely Kenya and Ethiopia, probably a handful of other African nations, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe, all three North American nations, Japan, China, Brazil, and perhaps a few others. Seems like you have a pretty competitive sport internationally. Better yet, you have one that doesn't automatically favor the wealthiest nations.

Actually, the easy economic accessibility of the sport probably hurts it in some respects--you don't have wealthy organizing groups pushing for its inclusion in the Olympics.

16 years ago 02/27/2010 7:04am EST

re: spittin seeds

Not impressed with the winter OG. Could not care less. That being said, I'd take the gold medal. No brainer.

16 years ago 02/27/2010 11:14am EST

re: Leanermeaner

The thing is that many european countries are very passionate about (some) winter sports and some of their biggest sports stars are winter athletes. But they don't give a flying f**k about cross country running, nor does americans, except for letrun posters. It's a cheap and easily accessible way of staying fit and not much more. You people would be over the clouds if cross country was getting the TV-ratings of some of these winter olympic sports. Furthermore, it's complete BS that winter athletes are upper-class. The sheer majority are average joe's and jane's.

Having said that, there are many much more obscure sports at the olympics that no one cares about either, so why not include cross country?

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