Samoans = worlds best sportsmen

Rugby = heaps of ABs, Wallabies etc
Cricket = a couple here and there
Soccer = tim cahill
American football = heaps of good players e.g. Ngata

Seriously, for a tiny country...

Spain.

Nadal, Alonso, Contador and Soccer WC champs. Easy the worlds best sporting nation.

They should start shipping samoans to spain for crossbreeding. Awesome then imo.

We all know tho that NZ is the best sporting country in the world per capita. Fact.

Drivers don't count. Nadal, Contador, sure, but per capita they aren't nearly as dominant

BTW "Spanish" isn't a nationality like Samoan. it's like saying "Americans = world's best sportsmen"

How many ethnic New Zealanders dominate in sport(s) across the world? Very few.

Ethnic New Zealanders? hahahahaha gtfo mang! :>

How the fuck do drivers not count? A grand prix is more physically demanding than a game of rugby. Or are you just stuck in the old myth that all they do is their and drive a car blissfully unaware of the tempretures, g-forces, concentration, and danger.

Cricketers? Have their been any other than Su'a? As maybe I'm wrong but I thought Taylor and Tuffey were Maori, even still we're hardly talking about the greats of the cricket world. Even if all three of those were Samoan only Taylor has a chance of actually being remembered outside NZ. Then you have Cahill, a good player but once again he's a not world class, he's a very good header of the ball and an alright midfielder but there's a reason no one has tried to buy him from Everton. So barring rugby were you have the Tanas and Jerrys, they seem to be more good journeymen type players, rather than world beaters.

Yes it is. Spain is a NATION thus it's also a NATIONality... You probably mean it's not an ethnicity, which I'll grant you because of the various groups that make-up Spain... Catalan, Castillan, Basque, Andalusian, and Galician.

based on?

How about Jamaica?

This had me as well



Taylor is Samoan/Kiwi. Tuffey is mouldy

Id like to know this too. Ive heard this line trotted out after the Olympics on occasion though so he may mean that

I would envisage working out who the worlds best sporting netion actually is would be virtually impossible/any system devised highly debatable

And anyway...your wrong vadz. Ive never even heard of a Samoan golfer before (unless you count Sua's failed attempt at turning pro)

Golf = the nutz. Im not sure on facts but I imagine its probably the worlds most participated sport

Not even Top 5

YeAH BUT I bet the list you found includes crap like "fishing"

Please provide list as matter of interest. Im sure I read someplace golf was no 1. Possibly its no 1 in America come to think of it. Golf isnt really accesible to the peasants

Far from it as the costs involved in playing golf are beyond most people when you consider gear, green fees etc... It's football on account of the fact all you need to play is a ball, and all you need to play competitively is a ball and two goals... If cricket was played in more countries it might be a contender here because all you need is a bat and a ball as I'm sure we're all skilled in improvising wickets.

NM I found one myself on Wiki


1.Football (soccer)
2.Judo
3.Volleyball
4.Tennis
5.Hockey


quite suprising

I'm fully aware of them. However, unless you crash, you don't get injured driving a car. Rugby is constantly hammering and damaging bodies.

COntact sports are far and away more physically demanding than any other sports, no matter how much they demand cardiovascular fitness. Just look at the latest evidence about brain damage in american football.

The human body can run marathons at age 80. It sure as fuck can't take a tackle.

Population of Samoa: 178,000.

That's roughly... 1/200th the size of England.

Does England have 200 cricket players better than Ross Taylor? No.
200 soccer players better than Tim Cahill? No
200 american football players better than well... http://espn.go.com/gen/s/2002/0527/1387562.html

You have to measure per capita otherwise it's worthless. And sorry, but Spain with 44.5 million people is a total underachiever in sports. It's only good at ONE team sport (soccer), it's "ok" at basketball, sucks at all the other major TEAM SPORTS (rugby, cricket) and has a few individuals that win tennis, cycling etc. occasionally

Is New Zealand a nation?

Remember, nation is closer to ethnicity than it is to state.
Spain = state. Not a nation state. A nation state would be like Italy - where you only have regional variations, not different nationalities (language is usually the key sign, and Basque is obviously not anything like Spanish).

USA = state, not nation
Spain = state, not nation
USSR = state, not nation
Somalia = nation state (something like 95% homogenous)
China = nation state (again, over 90% homogenous)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=olympic+medals+per+capita

Spain = nowhere to be seen.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/widget/widgetPopup.jsp?param=value&id=2ac2406e835bd49c70469acae337d292&i0=Spain&podSelect;=&includepodid=OlympicMedalistResults%3AOlympicData&showAssumptions=1

:>>>

Sport is do much more than {rugby/league/NFL} tho vadz, which is what i was alluding to when my post got all wayward.

I could be uninformed but I only see Samoans succeeding in those 3 games, where they excel mainly due to physical strength/atributes/running real fast into others. Thats not "sport". Its an extrmely small part of it. You need to rename the accolade "Most dynamic/powerful sportspeople...on the rugby field...in the world",.. or something

not sure about Cahill but you cant really count Taylor as he is no more than 50% Samoan, I think it could be even less

This. But maybe add kilakitti as the 4th sport.

Yeah difficult to back that up, but lets have a looksie... based on per capita you have to include both team and individual sports, and the importance of those sports we perform well in on an international level; here's a wee list...

Exceptional in
- Rugby best in the world
- Netball 2nd best in the world
- Rowing best in the world
- Track Cycling currently 2nd best in the world
- Motorsport (ie Dixon, Amon, Hulme and the motorcross boys)
- League, but that doesn't really count.
- Sailing
- Triathlon

Hold our own in
- Soccer. Top 50
- Athletics
- Equestrian
- Golf, won 2 majors
- Field Hockey
- Cricket (except for ODIs, we're top 4 consistently)
- Basketball

Shit at
- Tennis
- Lacrosse

so a country with 4 million would have to do the same, one with 8 would have to do twice as well. I can't think of any...

Sailing, motorsport and Equestrian don't count sorry.

Jamaica - exceptional in athletics (counts more than rugby, because rugby is only a minor sport)
4th in netball (which surely out ranks NZ's 2nd thanks to all NZs imports)
Ranked just above NZ in football according to the ELO rankings (which are more accurate than the Fifa rankings)
Has produced a number of exceptional cricketers (although going through a rough patch right now)
Produced about a dozen or so NFL players including superbowl winners

Twice as many Olympics golds than NZ

plus, it's a poor country that can't spend nearly the same amount of money on sport as NZ can
So their success is more an indication of natural talent rather than buying success

How can sailing, equestrian and motorsport not count? Because they require technical ability and knowledge? Lets be honest here, black people are faster than white people, while white people have more strategic and tactical cognitive abilities.

And what has being a poor country got to do with anything? That's their bad luck/poor management. This isn't a competition to find out who can scrape a gold medal from the fewest resources.

So on balance, we are better as we have more varied success rather then just in athletics and a few other minor sports.

you're an idiot if you think equestrian or motorsport involves as much strategic thought as soccer/cricket/american football/rugby

Putting your racism aside for a second: one reason why sailing, equestrian and motorsport don't count because they're sports for the rich.

wtf @ this post

Im right, you're all wrong, and i'm no racist, just calling a spade a spade. So there.

You can't just decide to exclude sports because you don't rate them.. As for claiming rich sports don't count, well that excludes rugby, the original posh sport for private school toffs.

Clearly you're baiting Pstu... you know that being competitive in a top motorsport competition involved the planning, organisation and management of upwards of 500 people to a level of detail which makes a top American football look like a kindergarten. The forward planning and preparation required are immense.

Because a sport requires high technology or lots of money doesn't discount it as being a sport one bit imo. Golf is a sport, as is sailing and equestrian. They may each have their traits which lend themselves to attracting different people than other sports but so do all sports.

Thanks for that insightful comment jono

Now if you weren't being deliberately obtuse you'd realise that you and some mates wanted to play some rugby all you would have to do is each save up about 50c and you'd have enough money to start playing the game

If you wanted to take up driving around in a fast car? well, i'd imagine you'd need a lot more than 50c.


I'm not necessarily saying they don't count as sports, I'm just saying they shouldn't be factored into any equation of world sporting success because they're simply out of reach for 99% of the world.

yes, but where running can attract anybody who is good at RUNNING (funny that)

To take part in sailing, before being good at sailing even comes into it, you first need to have MONEY

therefore, sailing doesn't count for this discussion because it not possible to determine whether NZ's success in sailing is due to NZers being good at sailing or whether it is to do with them being good at owning boats.

What do you mean by "have money"? Do you mean buy a boat yourself, or be at a school which has sailing (many do in coastal areas globally I imagine - even poor places), or simply live in a high GDP country where stuff like that you can just join a club?

What is the cut-off financially for something to be considered a real sport?

Sailing is a sport. A talented sailor - or driver, or golfer, or tennis player etc - merely has different talents compared to someone who can kick a ball around. They're not necessarily less talented as Vads wants us to believe.

This isn't about what counts as a real sport or not. It's just about what counts in the metric of sporting success. So move along now rich boy

So running and football are the only sports that count? Rubbish.

Why would someone from a wealthy background take up running when they can sail or race cars? Its up to them. Me, i'd race cars for sure. So then I don't count as a sportsperson, but if I had gone with running, I would and who knows, I may be the best in the world... See?

Anyway, high participation cost sports are not the be and end all, they just add weight to a countries sporting prowess. So yes, NZ is the best per capita.

Yes but when you start defining the metrics to favour your argument then you end up with something akin to the Highlife Awards. Things like motorsport and sailing don't require you to be rich either, especially traditionally... Senna and Fangio came from poverty, whereas here my fmaily have been involved in various levels of motorsport for 50+ years despite being upper working class at best (not pvoerty I'll grant you but hardly rich). Many people take the same route where they get a start and upon discovery get international backing which then allows them to go further.

On the original question, I hate to admit it but what about Australia?

Tonnes of Olympic goal medals, out performing a lot of countries with much larger populatons. In the last 20 or so years they've been number 1 at cricket, 99% of the time they are number 1 at league, first equal in Rugby World Cups and generally in the top 3 over the last 20 years in rankings. The basketball team has been in and out of the top 5, the only thing that has hampered their development is the interntional basketball governing body insisting that only one Oceania team could compete in major tournaments for a while, the equivilant of the IRB saying that only one Pacific Island team could compete at the Rugby World Cup. Their hockey team has been dominant in Olympics and World Champs from time to time. A tradition of great tennis players and Davis Cup wins, major winning golfers, a few good footballers (Tm Cahill is at least as Aussie as he is Samoan) - they've made it to the second round of the World Cup.

Looking at the sorts which apparently don't count, two F1 World Champions, various Suprbike and MotoGP world champs, and an America's Cup.

Although I'm not sure they count under vadz conditions of a nation, but then again neither does Jamaica as the vast majority of the population are descendants of African slaves.

Yes Aussie are terrific as they would say, but they have 21mn people compared to our 4, or more than 5 x the population so per capita we kick their arses

Do we really though, especially in terms of gold medals and World Champions. In terms of medals I wouldn't be at all surprised if they'd won 5x the number had. Hel they've even won more rugby world cups than us and I'm fiarly sure we have more active rugby players.

We're just ahead of them for total medals/population. And waaay ahead on just a gold medal basis. (36-21 based on population)

We have more rugby players but they have more league players, and we are the current world champs at league so go figure.

You're an idiot. We're talking about decision making by the person "at the nasty end". Not sure how many people are employed by an NFL or NRL team, but it's probably several hundred.

A first five eighth or a quarterback will process far more options than a F1 or any driver, at any time. It's like chess vs. checkers.

Now, note, we're not talking about "precise" movements e.g. driving skill, or ability to throw a ball where you want it. We're talking about coarse strategic decision-making. Cyclists, rally drivers, F1 drivers do not have the same number of discrete, coarse decisions to make. They go around a course in one direction. They can go slower, faster, take this line or that, but those are precise decisions that require a lot of skill, they aren't strategic decisions.

A rugby first five will decipher a defense, make a first coarse read: run/pass/kick, then a second coarse read: run inside, run straight, run outside, etc. Now, that's not to say he can actually make that move, but that he makes that decision.

A F1 driver either tries to pass on a corner, or he doesn't. It's a binary solution set. It's SKILL not strategic decisionmaking that determines whether he makes it or not.

^ What you said above just to remind you bro.


Oh, so you don't mean strategy now?.. the decision to throw to x or y or run is hardly sporting strategy.


This ^ is pretty obvious (and likely deliberate) ignoring of what being successful in these sports entails at the highest level and about as accurate as saying a quarterback has only two main options: throw the ball or get tackled.

Back on the orig theme though... Samoans are highly represented in sports they tend to be suited to physically at a higher rate than Asia, Caucasian or others. Wow.. you don't say?

LOL!!!

Strategy in Formula 1 is HUGE, both as a whole team and individually as a driver.

Vadz you're confusing instinct with strategy, a first five or quarterback will be guided by his instincts 99% of the time, the analyse > assess > act happens so fast that there's almost no discernable thought process involved.

Yeah instinct and accurate split second probability assesment helps makes great rugby players, but even then its mostly just the inside backs.. vadz you and fish_boy well and truly over romanticise rugby. Trying to say the game is anywhere near as mentally taxing as stuff like motorsport and golf is completely laughable. Step off imo

Golf is the biggest head fuck (except maybe women) known to mankind IMO. Far more mentally confusing, draining and taxing than any game of contact sport that I have played.



gc.

Plus the frustration of having nothing to blame but yourself when things go wrong, which of course makes you play a lot worse and get more frustrated.

Bollocks, blame can be attributed to:

- Caddy
- Clubs
- Wind
- Grass
- The Gallery

Golf is a headfuck, but only if you let it be so. Try less, you do better imo.

Are you talking about women or golf?

Really?Strategy in F1 is more complex than in, say, NFL (let alone soccer or rugby?) What decisions, exactly, are "strategic? tyre choice? pitting? being aggressive or not aggressive? You have to go around the course in the same direction.

Let's consider an offensive team coming out in a Posse set (3 wide receivers, 1 tight end, 1 back).
(Let alone the dozens of other possible permutations)

Any of the receivers could run ANY of the possible routes


Now, that's a very basic tree - there are usually 15 standard routes. So thats 9x9x9 passing permutations not counting option reads, or 9x9x9x9 if the tight end goes out into passing. Either 729 or 6300 ish.

Then you add in run permutations - which are limited to say 5-6 major variants... so that makes up to 3500 or 31000 possible major permutations of play on the field.

Now, these are strategic decisions made by PLAYERS (Rob, my criticism was saying that putting together a team is strategic decision making - it's hiring the right people etc, its not chess-like).

I'm not even mentioning the different blocking reads that the linemen could use (all of which are decisions, not skill).

Now, I'm not mentioning skill here. I'm not mentioning the football equivalent of pit stops (which would be rotating players) . I'm not mentioning individual talent. Or other minor tactical decisions like hand technique at the line, whether to wear knee pads for the receivers.

Purely the 'chess like' aspect of sport.

If you can't see that a player in soccer or rugby or NFL has many more potential strategic decisions than a cyclist or driver - who is limited to driving in ONE DIRECTION ONLY... then you're a fool

No doubt. That doesn't make it strategic, really. What choices do you have? Club. After that, it's all about skill. Not decision making.

How does mentally taxing = strategic?

I like to give you credit for being an onto it guy so will just assume you're taking the piss or conveniently ignoring the many hundreds of choices - many strategic - that need to be made in order to win the F1 competition.

Much of what you said about American Football has almost no strategic component to it. It's rote learning of plays which, granted, takes some very skilled people to decide on and execute.

Never played golf have you Z.......ffs dude "which club" is just where the decision making STARTS

Fuck this thread is a crack up...Vads, you're such an egosticical self-righteous cock sucker...it's hilarious

YES BUT THE NEXT 'DECISIONS' ARE ACTUALLY *SKILL* NOT DECISIONMAKING.

For fuck's sake, you people are either idiots or deliberately obtuse

I'm not saying golf is LESS mentally taxing or LESS skilful

I'm saying it requires fewer strategic choices. Just as checkers requires fewer than chess.

Please tell me what choices need to be made by a driver. And don't say "going heavy on the gas, going light on the gas, avoiding tyre wear" because those are skill decisions or the like and are the same in any team sport e.g. a player deliberately keeping his effort level down for the first half.

And don't include pre-race setup, because I could do exactly the same - team selection, warmup timings, arrival times for away games etc. Focus on what happens once the whistle goes or the flag drops.

I know this mate. But it is still wrong. Beginners to golf pretty much just think "make good contact" But once golfers become advanced at ball striking they have to make many strategic choices to make on course to try and score well.. Which club, which part of the green/fairway , bail out options, low shot high shot, left to right, right to left, lay up options, which way greens will break and how much etc etc tec The also have to know their own game, consider their current mental state, their position in the tournament and make choices/take risks based on a huge amount of information which is often incomplete. You wanna compare all that to what basically boils down to "kick/pass/run?" I mean ....sure golfers have more time but thats often worse when single mistakes can have imeediate impact on their bank balances of 100's of thousands of dollars. Pressure in golf is immense. Even for hackers

I love how more of less EVERYONE is disagreeing with Vadz, yet he's still all worked up and all for fuck sake-y as if he is the only one who is right and everyone else is an "idiot"..............how's the water temp knee deep in The Nile, bro?

vadz is fkn speesh

I'm NOT DISPUTING THOSE THINGS
Of course they are PRESSURE but they are not *strategic decision making*. They are the next level down, the level basically of skill.

To add to my football analogy, the receivers will be thinking "is the cornerback playing inside release? outside release? where are his hips? what's the wind like". The quarterback is thinking "what's the wind like? is the ball cold, do I have to push it a bit harder? what's the score, is my first read the slant or do i hold it and hope for the sluggo to develop?" The linemen are thinkling "we're on turf not grass, need to modify my slide step here. What's his probably move, rip or swim? etc etc"

The first five will be thinking "left foot or right", "skip pass or single man pass", "do i pass high cos it's not windy, or low cos it's windy", "spiral or shovel". Those aren't strategic decisions. Those are skill decisions.

In other words, ALL of the things you mention in golf apply to all other sports - they are an inherent part of any athletic activity be it running or rugby or yachting.

However, TEAM SPORTS by virtue of the fact there are multiple participants are inherently more complex. Let me demonstrate

Let's imagine a golfer does indeed have to make 100 different strategic decisions. However, it's an individual sport.
Let's imagine a game called "dumbo". It involves 2 players. Each only has to make 20 strategic decisions. Less complex than golf, right? Wrong. There are 400 possible permutations here because it's 20^2. So it's actually 4x more complex than golf. Like I showed before, with 3 receivers running any of 9 possible routes, that's 729 possible plays just like that. Not counting ANY of the skill elements e.g. breaking off a route a step early, using a particular technique to beat a defender etc.

Until you stop thinking that mental pressure = strategic decisionmaking, you won't get it.

You're a fucking idiot
I use EVIDENCE and ARGUMENTS. They just say 'you're wrong' and refuse to address my points.

lol

I have no arguement that NFL is highly complex, its rugby I take issue with. Same goes for league. Even more so

You're a fucking idiot for giving a fucking shit about such a trite, mundane, boring as fucking batshit subject (and the associated sports, too, for that matter...NFL is the biggest load of wank factor bullshit sport EVER)

douchebag