By definition, an Olympic bobsledder is a world class athlete. I think you are conflating general physical prowess with a specific athletic discipline. Different competitive sports require a lot of domains of expertise and for some sports there may be lots of crossover (for example most racket sports), while others have very little (like wrestling and water polo).LanderPoke wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:43 amThink about it this way. Like 90%+ of kids at least try basketball at some point in their lives, I would guess. The good ones stick with it, join leagues and end up playing. So out of 90%+ of a population you're going to capture the very best athletes.
How many do you suppose even try hockey... ever? fewer than 5% of kids? Other than places like minnesota, where a good number of kids actually do it, anyone that wants to do it, and has the $$$, can play at a "high level". It's simply a numbers game. It's like calling an Olympic bobsledder a world class athlete.
There's like what , three black people in the entire NHL?
I think your numbers are off on the % of kids that try basketball...90% is waaaay to high...but your point is a good one. It is very unlikely that the best of the best basketball players get overlooked in the United States...or the entire world for that matter. Probably the same with Soccer. Football? Ice Hockey? I bet a lot of would be amazing football players and hockey players either never get an opportunity or opt out (lots of parents don't let their kids play either sport due to head injury risk) of the competitive pool of talent. I think that changes over time though...More kids are into soccer than ever before....and it's not slowing down.
Years ago (back in the page2 ESPN heyday), ESPN did a write up on the most difficult sport. Obviously a tough thing to quantify. It's an interesting read and you can find it with a simple google search, but, interestingly, Ice Hocky came in second behind Boxing. I think with the advent of MMA nowadays, it may be behind that as well. But nonetheless...competitive Ice hockey is pretty high on the athletic ability scale. It's also a lot of fun to watch.