Russell Westbrook would dominate hockey if he played it from a young age. No one in the NHL would stand a chance against him.
Russell Westbrook would dominate hockey if he played it from a young age. No one in the NHL would stand a chance against him.
westbeast GOAT wrote:
Russell Westbrook would dominate hockey if he played it from a young age. No one in the NHL would stand a chance against him.
This is what MJ thought when he failed miserably at baseball.
You are out of your mind if you think there are 100X as many kids trying to be professional golfers than runners (maybe in your rich white neighborhood). In the latest data from the nfhs, 224,819 high schoolers competed in golf. Conversely, 470,668 competed in cross country and 1,059,206 competed in track and field. Considering that we are an affluent country, it is pretty safe to assume that those numbers are more skewed towards running in the world as a whole. Track, Soccer and Basketball are the most competitive spots at the world level as they are sports that require little investment, so any person from any walk of life can play them. The same can not be said of golf, yachting, and many of the other sports rich white guys obsess over.
bladerunner wrote:
There are probably 100X as many young kids trying to be golfers than runners.
Honestly321 wrote:
I'd say something like weight lifting / power lifting honestly. Any healthy person who starts at a young age can be good if they're willing to put in the right amount of work and not get hurt.
You're absolutely nuts. Top competitors are genetic freaks of nature.
Rich Piana wrote:
You're absolutely nuts. Top competitors are genetic freaks of nature.
Spot on...and one of the top genetic freaks of all time: Usain Bolt.
The people who believe that genetics is not a major factor with athletics still probably believe the Earth is flat.
This is a no brainer folks...too much over analysis 🤔.
Mountain climbing is a "sport" but only for rich white guys. hell the Sherpas even carried some fat, New York City old broad to the top of Everest a few years ago.
What happened to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours theory in all this? According to Outliers,
Anyone can be "world class" after 10,000 hours of practice is a nice, PC idea.
To sum things up, have any sports not been named so far, or have we got them all now?
Baseball, did someone get that one yet?
comedyrelief wrote:
You are out of your mind if you think there are 100X as many kids trying to be professional golfers than runners (maybe in your rich white neighborhood). In the latest data from the nfhs, 224,819 high schoolers competed in golf. Conversely, 470,668 competed in cross country and 1,059,206 competed in track and field. Considering that we are an affluent country, it is pretty safe to assume that those numbers are more skewed towards running in the world as a whole. Track, Soccer and Basketball are the most competitive spots at the world level as they are sports that require little investment, so any person from any walk of life can play them. The same can not be said of golf, yachting, and many of the other sports rich white guys obsess over.
bladerunner wrote:
There are probably 100X as many young kids trying to be golfers than runners.
This notion that golf is a "rich white" game is simply wrong. A Korean won the player's championship. Players from Spain, Fiji, Japan and other countries are winning golfs biggest events. Golf is a world game now. As far as rich goes, I grew up playing public courses and all of my competitive friends were middle class. A teenager can get a city pass and play for an entire year for about 500 dollars in most Colorado municipalities.
Many more kids golf than run. They just don't compete at the scholastic level.
Spartan races/obstacle course races
Cross fit
Any sport that relies little on skill and a lot on physical development should be high on the list (running, weight lifting etc...). In these sports a talented athlete training once a week is going to be crushed by much less talented guys training every day.
In other sports, like golf, tennis, badminton, soccer, surfing etc... not so much. Sure, you still need hard work if you want to fulfill your potential, but once you learn the basics, a talented person can crush a less talented one, even with a third of the training. Not to mention that a talented person will need 1/10 of the training to reach the same skill level of an average person.
comedyrelief wrote:
Soccer requires plenty of talent and lots of work to perfect the foot skills. It is a sport like running in that there is an advantage in being shorter (allows for quicker change in direction and allows for better short range ball control). It, like most sports, requires both talent and practice. Curling and the shooting sports are probably the least dependent upon talent.
Dumbest answer ever. Every youth coach will tell you that the best athletes come from soccer.
Wrestling. The intercollegiate/Olympic type, not the WWE nonsense.
It is highly technical, requiring mastery of a special array of skills that are not innate.
At elite levels these guys are redlining from both an aerobic and an anaerobic standpoint as the match progresses.
Yeah, you can't be a troglodyte and be a great wrestler, but the degree of innate athletic ability required for success is small compared to the hard work of weight training, conditioning, and acquisition of match-specific skills that are needed to compete at a high level.
Ali brownlee runs a 28:30 10k, can time trial with some of the best cyclists, and is a great albeit not Olympic class swimmer. I would call that pretty talented.
You don't think there are wealthy people in Korea, Spain, South Africa, Japan, India, etc.? Tell me, when is the last time a Jamaican, a black south African, a Kenyan or an Ethiopian won a golf tournament? There is pretty much no economic barrier to competing in running (Abebe Bikila won the Olympic marathon running barefoot). Trust me, the number of people competing in golf that come from privileged families dwarfs the number of those competing in athletics. The $500 (plus clubs, etc.) is enough of an economic barrier to make it unaffordable to all but the elite in the world (trust me a middle class American is still pretty elite when it comes to the world as a whole). Regardless, soccer is still the king of the sporting world when it comes to popularity and participation.
Go to any country club in the US and I guarantee all you are going to see is 90+% white guys. Golf is not a competitive sport, it is an elitist sport. Golfers are not great athletes (with the exception of Tiger Woods in his prime), they are just the best at what they do when you are able to exclude a large portion of the globe's population.
freediving?
Thread Recap wrote:
To sum things up, have any sports not been named so far, or have we got them all now?
Baseball, did someone get that one yet?
I think cricket and polo have been missed.
Maybe the martial arts, too.
If we're talking about sports, I would have to say sailing. Other than that, I would say card, board and strategy games just take hours of practice and hard work to get good at.
sc runner wrote:
If we're talking about sports, I would have to say sailing. Other than that, I would say card, board and strategy games just take hours of practice and hard work to get good at.
Then you obviously haven't been to the canasta world championships in Miami.
Like MJ wrote:
westbeast GOAT wrote:Russell Westbrook would dominate hockey if he played it from a young age. No one in the NHL would stand a chance against him.
This is what MJ thought when he failed miserably at baseball.
MJ played baseball when he was young then quit to play basketball. Had he played baseball all the way through he would have been a great MLB player. The guy still hit over .200 in AA at age 31 after not playing for years. That's some sick talent right there.
Genetics R us wrote:
Rich Piana wrote:You're absolutely nuts. Top competitors are genetic freaks of nature.
Spot on...and one of the top genetic freaks of all time: Usain Bolt.
The people who believe that genetics is not a major factor with athletics still probably believe the Earth is flat.
This is a no brainer folks...too much over analysis 🤔.
So what's your pick Mr. Imnotreallyrichpiani