Who is the best sporting nation
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Has to be done on a population basis for me. No way small populations can compete with the USA for example, 327mill is a lot of people, especially with their financial resources. They also focus massively on Olympic sports. The change in their sevens team has been a significant example.
Aus would be well up there if you count league, netball, cricket. All non Olympic sports. As would we based on population I guess.
Not a great question with so many variables.
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@Chris-B said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@Snowy said in Who is the best sporting nation:
Aus would be well up there if you count league, netball, cricket.
Not on recent results!
Haha. I did mean historically or are we just talking this year?
As I said too many variables. Question needs to be defined to answer it.
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@Chris-B said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@Snowy said in Who is the best sporting nation:
Aus would be well up there if you count league, netball, cricket.
Not on recent results!
There's a stunning correlation between the investment after the poor results of the Montreal Olympics and subsequent domination. The expertise that flows (or did) out of the AIS is (was) amazing in terms of outcomes.
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@antipodean Yeah - the lead up to the Sydney Olympics was the wort ever time for an NZ sports fan.
I'm guessing that after Sydney the budget thrown at sport got rolled back some and correlates with the subsequent decline across many sports?
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@antipodean said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@No-Quarter said in Who is the best sporting nation:
USA could absolutely dominate any sport they wanted to really. I'd hate to think how supremely talented their rugby team would be if that was their number 1 winter sport over there, nobody else would get a look in.
I don't agree. England have shown us what a large player pool and financial resources can (or can't) achieve. What works for the USA is professionalism, to which the rest of the world is catching up. The money on offer ensures that players are exposed to professional standards early and rewards those with the right physical attributes to train. They can still only put XV on the field at any one time.
What they would likely have is the best club game standard, comprised of players from all over the globe - think Premiere League.
Can you imagine the top African American athletes playing rugby? Some of those Basketball players would make absolutely insane locks, they'd be unstoppable. They'd also have a surplus of wings that can run a sub 10 100m. They would have X factor across the field, would be nearly impossible to contain.
I don't think the English rugby set up today would come close to comparing what they could put together. England doesn't have even one hundredth of the talent that the USA has available.
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@No-Quarter said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@antipodean said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@No-Quarter said in Who is the best sporting nation:
USA could absolutely dominate any sport they wanted to really. I'd hate to think how supremely talented their rugby team would be if that was their number 1 winter sport over there, nobody else would get a look in.
I don't agree. England have shown us what a large player pool and financial resources can (or can't) achieve. What works for the USA is professionalism, to which the rest of the world is catching up. The money on offer ensures that players are exposed to professional standards early and rewards those with the right physical attributes to train. They can still only put XV on the field at any one time.
What they would likely have is the best club game standard, comprised of players from all over the globe - think Premiere League.
Can you imagine the top African American athletes playing rugby? Some of those Basketball players would make absolutely insane locks, they'd be unstoppable. They'd also have a surplus of wings that can run a sub 10 100m. They would have X factor across the field, would be nearly impossible to contain.
I don't subscribe to this theory. What you need to keep in mind is they may well not mentally be the type of player that is happy to shove in scrums and clear bodies out at rucks. My nephew will be 2m tall and broad shouldered. he'd make a hell of a lock, but is a gentle giant. He literally doesn't apply his genetics to the maximum for fear of hurting other kids on the field.
Also wingers who can run sub 10s do so because that's what they train for. Repetitive sprinting drastically reduces time.
People tend to forget that athletes are good at one thing because of specificity - they train to do that. Once you add other skills they can't be as good at the one thing they're known for.
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@antipodean The hole in your theory is that they have so many there is bound to be one or two out of the many thousands of yank sportsmen with the basic suitable physical/athletic foundations that will be able adapt to rugby and could approach star status given time.
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@Higgins said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@antipodean The hole in your theory is that they have so many there is bound to be one or two out of the many thousands of yank sportsmen with the basic suitable physical/athletic foundations that will be able adapt to rugby and could approach star status given time.
we've had this chat before. Developing top flight tight forwards is non-trivial. Aus struggles, along with a bunch of sevens countries. You have to bed in skills and workate early, adn keep at it for bloody ages.
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@Higgins said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@antipodean The hole in your theory is that they have so many there is bound to be one or two out of the many thousands of yank sportsmen with the basic suitable physical/athletic foundations that will be able adapt to rugby and could approach star status given time.
And they have massive financial resources. If you had the cream of their athletic talent playing rugby, after a while I have no doubt they could seriously contend
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@canefan said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@Higgins said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@antipodean The hole in your theory is that they have so many there is bound to be one or two out of the many thousands of yank sportsmen with the basic suitable physical/athletic foundations that will be able adapt to rugby and could approach star status given time.
And they have massive financial resources. If you had the cream of their athletic talent playing rugby, after a while I have no doubt they could seriously contend
Let's presume that rugby did manage to take the cream of their athletic talent and they applied their enormous economic resources, you'd still have to wait until their was sufficient depth to create the required level of talent to compete.
That would still take a generation. While they get paid what they do to play weirdo rugby with body armour or bouncy netball, that's never going to happen.
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@antipodean said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@canefan said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@Higgins said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@antipodean The hole in your theory is that they have so many there is bound to be one or two out of the many thousands of yank sportsmen with the basic suitable physical/athletic foundations that will be able adapt to rugby and could approach star status given time.
And they have massive financial resources. If you had the cream of their athletic talent playing rugby, after a while I have no doubt they could seriously contend
Let's presume that rugby did manage to take the cream of their athletic talent and they applied their enormous economic resources, you'd still have to wait until their was sufficient depth to create the required level of talent to compete.
That would still take a generation. While they get paid what they do to play weirdo rugby with body armour or bouncy netball, that's never going to happen.
It's all totally hypothetical and isn't going to happen anytime soon. America loves the NFL
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NZ would definitely be up there - rugby, cricket, cycling, rowing, sailing, netball, squash.
But I reckon one of the Scandinavian countries. They have small populations and when you look at team sports, Olympics (particularly Winter), tennis, golf etc, they always seem to punch above.
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Wales goes ok
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@antipodean said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@canefan said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@Higgins said in Who is the best sporting nation:
@antipodean The hole in your theory is that they have so many there is bound to be one or two out of the many thousands of yank sportsmen with the basic suitable physical/athletic foundations that will be able adapt to rugby and could approach star status given time.
And they have massive financial resources. If you had the cream of their athletic talent playing rugby, after a while I have no doubt they could seriously contend
Let's presume that rugby did manage to take the cream of their athletic talent and they applied their enormous economic resources, you'd still have to wait until their was sufficient depth to create the required level of talent to compete.
That would still take a generation. While they get paid what they do to play weirdo rugby with body armour or bouncy netball, that's never going to happen.
“there”.
but otherwise, agree -
@ACT-Crusader said in Who is the best sporting nation:
NZ would definitely be up there - rugby, cricket, cycling, rowing, sailing, netball, squash.
But I reckon one of the Scandinavian countries. They have small populations and when you look at team sports, Olympics (particularly Winter), tennis, golf etc, they always seem to punch above.
That per capita nation table @canefan posted says Norway. They topped the medal table at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics - but that table topping was based around domination of cross-country skiing.
I'd imagine they'd weight winter and summer Olympic medals the same, but it's a pretty small set of developed/mainly European and North American countries (that have snow) that compete at the Winter Olympics. Not dissimilar to plenty of disciplines at the summer Olympics - so counting all Olympic medals the same is highly misleading.
I you win the Athletics 100 metres that's probably equivalent to about ten swimming gold medals on the basis that Usain Bolt > Michael Phelps.
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@Chris-B said in Who is the best sporting nation:
I'd imagine they'd weight winter and summer Olympic medals the same, but it's a pretty small set of developed/mainly European and North American countries (that have snow) that compete at the Winter Olympics. Not dissimilar to plenty of disciplines at the summer Olympics - so counting all Olympic medals the same is highly misleading.
I you win the Athletics 100 metres that's probably equivalent to about ten swimming gold medals on the basis that Usain Bolt > Michael Phelps.Agreed. I've long argued Phelps is spectacular in being best at not fulfilling the Olympic motto. Swimming should be based on time over distance so if you want to do it sidestroke, go for it.
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@antipodean Swimming is an absolute pot-hunting sport. I really dislike these "Quest for X number of gold medals" that individuals at the pool indulge in at every Olympics".
