which sport has the best athletes?

[Willhu12]

to expand on my earlier points -

I have friends from Ukraine, Russia, Poland and Bulgaria - none of them have told me that BBall was popular when I asked them. Due to mainly Finald and N. Russia, Ice Hockey supercedes basketball, and athletics has more cotenders that Ice Hockey.

And to further expand, this thread is not "what is the widest spread sport". That was an arguement some stupid soccer player brought in to try and class popularity as athleticism.

[boykid28]

i've lived in europe herp derp. i've also travelled through all of europe for over a 2 month period...enough with the assumptions...

the most populated countries in eastern europe are all big soccer countries...soccer's huge in russia, greece, croatia, czech republic, ukraine...its the number 1 sport in each of these countries...

your arguments are laughable...

Russia: soccer http://khorkina.tripod.com/russia.htm, if you don't believe that you can here it from russians themselves, http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=565041

poland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_in_Poland soccer

czech republica: soccer http://www.czech-travel-guide.com/sports.htm

Greece: soccer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_in_Greece

croatia: soccer http://www.japodi.de/sports.html

Serbia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_in_Serbia soccer

i'll give you lithuania, and estonia...and their huge populations

again you said sport when u should be saying team sport. and again your source of information is wikipedia, a travel guide, and a thread. not only is wikipedia laughable but it isnt even allowed as a source of reference at most colleges in the us. i am not denying soccer as the most popular team sport, but its not the most popular sport/activitiy.

[tottsBALEout]

to expand on my earlier points -

I have friends from Ukraine, Russia, Poland and Bulgaria - none of them have told me that BBall was popular when I asked them. Due to mainly Finald and N. Russia, Ice Hockey supercedes basketball, and athletics has more cotenders that Ice Hockey.

And to further expand, this thread is not "what is the widest spread sport". That was an arguement some stupid soccer player brought in to try and class popularity as athleticism.

i think you're missing the point of my argument...

[tottsBALEout]

again you said sport when u should be saying team sport. and again your source of information is wikipedia, a travel guide, and a thread. not only is wikipedia laughable but it isnt even allowed as a source of reference at most colleges in the us. i am not denying soccer as the most popular team sport, but its not the most popular sport/activitiy.

yes i have sources, more than you can say. i was just looking for a quick source to prove i wasn't coming up with stuff out of my ass. again, more than you can say...

in these eastern european countries soccer is still the most popular activity...

every kid grows up going out to the local park and playing football, its the thing to do. weightlifting isn't as widespread as soccer. and there's more to popularity than simply looking at participation numbers...

what does the media pay attention to, where does the money and resources go to, what do people watch?...

for every one of these things soccer is #1, in most eastern european countries.

people across eastern europe look up to sport stars like nemanja vidic, dmitar berbatov, shevchenko...soccer players


AND THERE'S NOTHING LAUGHABLE ABOUT WIKIPEDIA...its very reliable...you'll find the sources used on wikipedia are very reliable ones...
http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia...3-5997332.html
wikipedia as reliable as britannica

[tottsBALEout]

to expand on my earlier points -

I have friends from Ukraine, Russia, Poland and Bulgaria - none of them have told me that BBall was popular when I asked them. Due to mainly Finald and N. Russia, Ice Hockey supercedes basketball, and athletics has more cotenders that Ice Hockey.

And to further expand, this thread is not "what is the widest spread sport". That was an arguement some stupid soccer player brought in to try and class popularity as athleticism.

how can finland, with a population of 5.4million people make that much of a difference...

look at countries like greece, croatia where basketball is easily the #2 sport. these are countries with much larger populations than 5.4 million

[Willhu12]

how can finland, with a population of 5.4million people make that much of a difference...

look at countries like greece, croatia where basketball is easily the #2 sport. these are countries with much larger populations than 5.4 million

Go onto your precious wikipedia and search sport in europe, which lists ice hockey as 2nd.

And none of this proves soccer has better athletes - all it proves is that your an idiot.

[boykid28]

yes i have sources, more than you can say. i was just looking for a quick source to prove i wasn't coming up with stuff out of my ass. again, more than you can say...

in these eastern european countries soccer is still the most popular activity...

every kid grows up going out to the local park and playing football, its the thing to do. weightlifting isn't as widespread as soccer. and there's more to popularity than simply looking at participation numbers...

what does the media pay attention to, where does the money and resources go to, what do people watch?...

for every one of these things soccer is #1, in most eastern european countries.

people across eastern europe look up to sport stars like nemanja vidic, dmitar berbatov, shevchenko...soccer players


AND THERE'S NOTHING LAUGHABLE ABOUT WIKIPEDIA...its very reliable...you'll find the sources used on wikipedia are very reliable ones...
http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia...3-5997332.html
wikipedia as reliable as britannica

lets not start the naming famous athletes thing because i already win. im not denying soccer as the most popular team sport in the world but in eastern europe, china, and russia olympic weightlifting is more popular. u could only name me 3 soccer players whom i havent even heard of. i can name a ton of eastern euro, russia, and chinese oly weightlifting stars that are known:

Pyrros Dimas (GRE) Ronny Weller (GER, GDR) Nikolay Peshalov (BUL, CRO) Halil Mutlu (TUR) Akakios Kakiasvili (EUN, GRE) Naim Süleymanoğlu (TUR) Arkady Vorobyov (URS) Imre Földi (HUN) Nicu Vlad (ROU) Manfred Nerlinger (FRG, GER) Marian Zieliński (POL) Norayr Nurikyan (BUL) Vasily Alekseyev (URS) Zhan Xugang (CHN) Aleksandr Kurlovich (URS, EUN) Liu Chunhong (CHN) Chen Yanqing (CHN) Leonid Zhabotinsky (URS) Waldemar Baszanowski (POL) Israil Militosyan (URS, EUN) Viktor Kurentsov (URS) Rudolf Ismayr (GER) Leonid Taranenko (URS, EUN) Josef Steinbach (AUT) Yury Vlasov (URS) Jaan Talts (URS) Anatoly Khrapaty (URS, KAZ) Alfred Neuland (EST) Yevgeny Minayev (URS) Trofim Lomakin (URS) Tymur Taimazov (EUN, UKR) Péter Baczakó (HUN) Giorgi Asanidze (GEO) Aleksey Petrov (RUS) Zhang Xiangxiang (CHN) Josef Straßberger (GER) Andrey Chemerkin (RUS) Ireneusz Paliński (POL) Sergey Syrtsov (RUS, EUN) Andrey Rybakov (BLR) Yoto Yotov (BUL) Dito Shanidze (URS) Szymon Kołecki (POL) Fritz Hünenberger (SUI) Marc Huster (GER) Leonidas Sabanis (GRE) He Yingqiang (CHN) Norbert Ozimek (POL) Viktors Ščerbatihs (LAT) Agata Wróbel (POL) Khadzhimurat Akkayev (RUS) Valentina Popova (RUS) Atanas Shopov (BUL) Liu Shoubin (CHN) Arnold Luhaäär (EST) Hans Wölpert (GER) Győző Veres (HUN)Tadeusz Rutkowski (POL)Heinrich Schneidereit (GER), Stefan Botev Khristov (AUS, BUL), Frank Kugler (GER) ........

and i can keep going. these are well known knames that have all won olympic medals and are from an eastern euro country, russia, or china. again im trying to prove a point. i used to live there, they have sports schools dedicated to just weightlifting, and most of these countries have weightlifting schools in every province. they dont have sports schools in these countries (except for maybe germany and russia) dedicated to soccer. some of these countries leagues arent even known. they dont recruit for soccer specifically like they do with weightlifting; where they recruit kids at the age of 10.

again, im not denying soccer as the most popular team sport in the world. but in east euro its not what u think.

[RivannaRow]

Rowing takes incredible strength over a long period of time (a 2k race is the physiological equivalent of doing 95lb squats 220+ times in a row at a high rate). It also requires finesse and balance as well as team awareness.

BUT, IMO the toughest sport that requires the most athleticism is boxing. It is completely exhausting both physically and mentally.