Who is the best sporting nation
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Iceland would be up there on per head of population. Stupid amount of good crossfitters which apprently is the best athlete in the world. Strongman and powerlifting is massive there to. Think handball is alright to. Soccer team has been good of late. Population of 350k or so.
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Jamaca go bloody well at athletics for a population of 2 and a half mill
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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.
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Probably a number of factors in this with culture, funding, education, politics, population all being important. NZ has done pretty bloody well when you consider the dominance of the AB's, Womans Rugby, Netball, Sailing, Rowing etc etc.
I think any country that has a vested interest in a sport and then has the right funding and coaching can do well. Think of the Aussies in their cricket, AFL, League (Maybe not best example at the moment lol) and even Swimming.
Look at what China have done with their Olympic Program.
The USA obviously has an amazing sporting culture with all of their professional leagues, the college system etc.
Canada with Curling
In the end it is hard to go past the USA as they have done well in so many different sporting events.
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Further to this, the country which can use genetic screening to best select athletes for a specific sport may have a huge advantage moving forward. Imagine if China for example sequences the entire population and can identify which children have the highest probability of having the best physique for whatever sport. Obviously a lot of it is mental but if you can find people who share Phelps or Thorpies shape early then you will have an advantage.
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@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.
Team sports, anyway. And the bigger the team (e.g. 23 in rugby) the more population gives you an advantage (everything else being equal) by eliminating any weak links.
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@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.
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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.
