http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills?sort=total_rank#grid
badminton more difficult than swimming, running or xc-skiing. who knew.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills?sort=total_rank#grid
badminton more difficult than swimming, running or xc-skiing. who knew.
I don’t think they are referring to backyard/picnic badminton.
exactly. I happended to be flipping through the channels the other day and caught the European Badminton Championships of all things. I actually stopped and watched it for awhile. Those guys are ridiculous. They hit that stupid thing so fast you can’t even follow it.
Shuttlecock…huh, huh, huh…you said c#ck.
So being a placekicker in football is tougher than making it in Tennis or Rugby?
In looking at that grid, I’m wondering how applicable it is.
For example, some boxers have had great success in being very good in just a few of those attribute categories.
Whereas you take something like baseball, and somebody could be high achieving in all of those categories EXCEPT Hand-eye coordination, and they are essentially useless as an everyday player.
I’m looking through the rankings and a notice baseball’s requirement of hand-eye coordination appears to be the only (or at least very few) ratings of 9 or greater, so that requirement sort of skews the rest. For an athlete that fulfills that requirement, the other cateroies could/should be easy to obtain (when compared to the levels of other sports) … but the number of athletes that have that high of a rating, while being adequate in the others is very low.
Out of interest and conversation, I question the ratings of some … namely Hockey’s hand-eye requirement of 7.5 That rating is high (comparably), but I’m wondering if it’s “high enough”. The stickhandling skills of passing, “receiving” a pass, shooting, and especially one timers and redirections … the level of difficulty is very high … especially if you’ve tried to “handle the puck” while skating fast AND trying to avoid defenders, etc.
I think the information does do a good job of showing which sports require as vast array of talents and abilities and others that are more reliant on one dominant characteristic and adequacy in the others.
Interesting.
It’s not surprising to me that boxing and hockey are the top 2 sports. As I said after my first hockey game in person, “Man, even the goons can skate!” TV doesn’t do the skill/ability required for that sport justice.
Just click on the “END” (endurance) column to see the sports in the “proper order”. Can you guess which 3 are at the top?
These guys must never have tried surfing.
I was expecting it to be in the top 10.
One of the most difficult sports to learn, at least for me…
You would think that it should have been much higher on these:
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: The ability to react quickly to sensory perception.
ANALYTIC APTITUDE: The ability to evaluate and react appropriately to strategic situations.
NERVE: The ability to overcome fear.
=)
When looking at the sports that have a dominant category (such as those with a rating of 9 or more), I am wondering if the vast majority of an athlete’s potential in these sports/events is “in-born”.
For example, the endurance factor of BRS (in order) and the hand-eye coordination required for baseball and table tennis … I am wondering just how much one can improve that category. It would seem that you either “got it” or “you don’t”.
Only a bunch of so called overpaid journalists/ pseudoexperts could actually get together and compare apples and pears- probably the single most pointless piece of sports journalism I have ever seen. Click on the column heads and marvel at the expert results… as for boxing topping the list- give me a break. Apple and pears my friends…
Weeman
Come on Guys and Dolls. The ESPN results are simply an analog of the ST Dweeb Forces constant and epic search for scientific confirmation of perfection. There, are some, who might put one iota of credance in either set of dweebs, and some of those might prevail. But for me, I tend to discount both and do what an old warrior from my tri-club (who coincidentally has finished Hawaii at least six times) has said many times…“Stop whining about equipment, food, problems and get off your ass and actually ride your bike, run or swim”. Usually, and for most, this concept works, i.e. trianing (not in excess but at all) is better than screwing around with how much drag your new bike HRM mount will produce.
Peace out!
I was quite surprised that Rock climbing wasn’t part of the sports reviewed!!!
Fishing??? puleazeeeee!!!
This is no sport… its drinking bears while you wait on something else (fish) to do the job for you.
I’m not surprises at boxing tough. you should try getting in a ring and hitting your opponent like crazy for 12 3 minutes rounds it is super hard…
But yes i agree there are a lot of sports there that are overrated… baseball beeing the most overrated from personnal experience
But put rock climbing in there and my guess is it beats them all
The only attributes it would score low is speed and hand-eye coordination.
Just my 2cents
Yeah, I’m sure everyone would challenge these rankings somewhat. I find it hard to believe that tennis requires greater agility than gymnastics for example.
Auto racing ranks higher than track and field distance running … due to “nerve” and “analytical” high marks which is interesting. This must be why the Hawaii race on NBC gets started “already in progress” every year while we watch the end of some Nascar race or college football game 
Skateboarding ranks higher too. Who knew that those kids with the funky clothes are better athletes than those Kenyan running slugs
i think “drinking a bear” as you said would be a very tough sport that would top the list.
Just click on the “END” (endurance) column to see the sports in the “proper order”. Can you guess which 3 are at the top?
Good catch.
The only other tri-applicable item is Durability and I am surprised running was not right up there.
DURABILITY: The ability to withstand physical punishment over a long period of time. Example: NBA/NHL players.
To me running 100+ miles a week is the ultimate in durability, but they ranked 15 sports higher.
My wife is a figure skater and I sent the link to her even though I am sure to get grief as her sport is ranked #19 and ours is 36/20/40 - S/B/R.
I think it’s neat…but kind of meaningless. For example, basketball ranked pretty high, but if you’re 7’7" you don’t really have to be very athletic at all to be considered one of the best in the world.
And to what level of competency are they talking about? 8 year old kids can play baseball and they can box, but how many can run 3 miles? Or do they only have to run a half mile to be considered a “distance runner.”
It’s like asking what instrument is more difficult to play, the trombone or the piano? (I play both) Each instrument has its capabilties and its limitations and there are different expectation of what you want to hear played on each (try playing a piano one note at a time and see how much applause you get…unless its really fast).
Catch a large fish sometime you’ll want to take a nap after you are done. I do hate fishing but deep sea fishing is a blast.
Grant
You’re right i kinda didn’t think about that because the nearest sea fishing from where i live is about 30 hours by car
.
If you combine the scores for swimming, biking and running, you get the toughest sport by a mile!
I am quite suprised gymnastics wasn’t higher as well. I was an elite gymnast and after I quit I picked every sport up like I’d been playing it for years, and many sports ranked higher I had mastered in to time (tennis and basketball (I also grew after quitting gymnastics) being 2 sports ranked higher that I was soon doing really well in). I believed I was able to pick these sports up so easily because I was so coordinated and strong from gymnastics.