Nigel Lopez-McBean writes: Australian sports fans are quick to proclaim that they are one of the great sporting nations, if not the greatest on earth.
For a western nation with a solidly outdoors, sport-obsessed culture with excellent weather and facilities, it’s possible to argue that they aren’t quite as good as they think. Why? Soccer, Boxing and Athletics, that’s why.
I’m not suggesting that Australia isn’t a successful sporting nation. It is. It’s just that this success has underlying themes.
Australia tends to excels at the following:
1. Minority sport – Rugby, Swimming, Women’s Netball, Cricket (yes, it’s still a minority sport), Tennis, Surfing, Triathlon and a whole raft of other sports that many major competitive countries (Germany, Spain, Russia etc) have little interest in.
2. Middle class and lifestyle sport - See above…
3. Unevolved sport – There is no doubting the athleticism of the AFL but is it a great sport? A highly evolved sport?
150 years of history and it has scarcely made its way out of Victoria and to its detriment is still a sport, played, coached and watched only by Australians. Where are the new ideas? The multinational influence that has driven the likes of soccer?
An example of how basic AFL is as a sport is the Father/Son draft policy. In highly evolved technical sports like soccer the chances of a father and son both being good enough to play the same sport professionally are extremely rare, let alone both become award winning players for the same club.
The idea of this situation being prevalent enough to warrant an administrative policy in AFL is an indicator of the sports possibly average skill level.
4. The great sporting nations have an illustrious history in the king of sports – Boxing.
Australia’s history in Boxing for a nation of men that pride themselves on their machismo (the biggest spectator sports in Australia are both violent contact sports) is confusing. At present Australia is a less successful boxing nation than the likes of Jamaica, Thailand, Indonesia, Ireland, Wales and Cuba. Where are the Australian-born fighters?
5. Any sport without world class IOC standard drug testing – Australia still has professional sports that have a ‘three strikes’ policy. British soccer players have been banned for a year for merely ‘forgetting’ a single drug test. Does any intelligent person really think ‘three strikes’ is a drugs policy? The sports which have the most sophisticated drug testing tend to (worryingly) have the lowest Australian representation.
6. Any sport which you requires years of practice…outdoors.
7. Supporting winning teams. Is the obsession with finals series in Australian sport, anything other than a way to prevent fans losing interest half way through the season when their team has no chance of winning the league?
It’s easy to suggest that the Finals Series whilst being lucrative and exciting, reward mediocrity, which is contrary to Australia’s ultra-competitive image.
Is Australia’s sporting love and prowess overstated?
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Zac Zavos said | October 2nd 2007 @ 4:27pm | Report comment
Interesting piece Nigel (though slightly controversial).
For the record, we published a listing of current Australian world champions not long ago: http://www.theroar.com.au/2007/09/24/reigning-australian-world-champions/
Joshua Carmody said | October 2nd 2007 @ 7:17pm | Report comment
Nigel Lopez-McBean
1. Monority sport? Cricket? Let’s look at India – cricket mad – 1 billion people. Middle class…India? I billion people…and millions upon millions upon millions of those NOT middle class. We can continue…Bangladesh…Zimbabwe…Sri Lanka…do any of these compete at football?
2. As above.
3. Evolved/non-evolved? All sport has evolved Nigel. All of them. Particularly in regards to sport science To say that football is devoid of nepotism is ridiculous.Not sure how you link this to the terms ‘evolved’ or non-evolved?’. Football – more evolved? How do you define this? Rugby Union has had enormous changes in the last 20 years – rules, professionalism, fitness. Cricket the same. Sport science, as I’ve said above, has impacted every major sport. Football has been impacted by increased fitness, but still enforces a penalty shoot out at the end of a draw. I see ‘football’ and ‘penalty shoot-out’ as two different sports, but there you go. By the way it’s a bit odd to be using AFL as an example – wouldn’t it be better to examine sports that other countries play- cricket, football, union…
4. You obviously love boxing. To call it the ‘king of sports’ is your opinion. I think it’s violent, encourages dumb individualistic postures, and encourages childish ‘I’m the man’ statements. I can also say without a splinter of doubt that your correlates to ‘Australian prowess’ are incredibly skewed. Boxing? Not getting that one. USA has an inredible pedigree in boxing…but it’s also the fattest population on the planet.
5. Drug testing…hmmm. Well on your scale the US would top the world in terms of sport – ie as a result of boxing, the king of sports. However American Football has probably the most obvious, and even brazen, abuse of steriods and other performance enhancing drugs of any sport (including weightlifting). It is why American Footballers have an average age of death of approximately 62. Heart failure.
6. Practice and outdoors? Is this because you are mad on boxing? But isn’t football practised outside???
7. You’ve lost me completely.
Joshua
onside said | October 2nd 2007 @ 7:55pm | Report comment
I think I know what you are trying to get at N L Mc B.
The article could have been written for any country that plays sport.
No nation is immune from your obsevations,just change the names of the countries.
A couple of examples
Apart from rugby, the second most watched television show in New Zealand is the Sheep Dog Trials.
Teams of sheepdogs from around the globe compete with the locals for the Sheep Dog World Cup
The champion Kiwi sheepdog team perform the BARKA before every competition. They were unbeatable
until recently ,when the ISDDTC (international sheep dog drug testing council) shocked the world by proving
that whilst the sheep dogs were ‘clean’, the sheep were on Prozac.
Wales has a history of producing champion darts players.This is understandable in a country where it can
get dark by 4.30 in the afternoon in winter.The Welsh world champiomn dart plasyer was in the Guinness
Book of Records for scoring 248 with just one throw at the dart board .This was removed the following
year wheil the IDDTC (international darts drug testing council) proved that whilst the Welsh dartologist was
‘clean’ ,he achieved the record score by using a hedgehog.
swifty said | October 2nd 2007 @ 11:04pm | Report comment
onside,
Was that the world’s first ‘hedgehog related’ sporting scandal?
matty p said | October 2nd 2007 @ 11:14pm | Report comment
Overall, I think you article is a load of bollocks. Are you just trying to be deliberatley inflamatory? I don’t likes your opening assertion, that Australian are quick to assert our global sporting prowess. I never heard such rot. I have heard my friends from time to time argue that we deserve to be considered for the “pound for pound title”, considering our population size, and I think undoubtedly we have thrown up world beaters in a huge diversity of sports.
You dismissal of cricket is uninformed and plain daft.
As for boxing – we just don’t have enough of the urban slums that produce today’s great boxers. Your comparison with the countries stated is an unsupported assertion and irrelevant because boxing is pretty much irrelevant. Boxing is a dieing sport, not the greatest individual sport around as it was in the first half of the 20th century – when we did have great boxers. Today in the US (always the home of pro boxing), combat sport is being overtaken by mixed martials arts and really is a minority sport. It just doesn’t matter anymore.
Zolton Zavos said | October 3rd 2007 @ 12:53am | Report comment
Not to skew too far off the subject, but one of the main reasons why soccer has such a strong global standing is the simplicity of the game and the ease with which it can be played. I watched a group of players kicking a ball around a park the other day in Brooklyn, New York and was reminded again that the key to universal adoption is in making it accessible to everyone – regardless of social standing. Does this make it any more worthy a sport? I doubt it, and I’d like to see any arguments to support this claim. American Football has never really moved beyond the borders of the US, but does that mean that it’s an ‘unevolved’ sport. To the contrary, American Football has evolved its technology and even its rules over the past fifty years – some would argue to the detriment of the game as a spectacle.
Irrespective of the relatively small size of the population, Australia is a remarkable sporting nation. To have had so many world record holders, gold medalists and world champions in such a disparate variety of sports is an achievement that few other countries can match.
Nigel Lopez-McBean said | October 3rd 2007 @ 7:57am | Report comment
Four quick things:
1. Anyone who thinks that Australians don’t talk up their sporting prowess….clearly doesn’t live here.
2. It’s telling that my critics have largely skipped the drug issue, which is an issue Australian sport has really failed to deal with.
3. Boxing is dead? Tell that to the 1100 accredited media who attended the recent De la Hoya v Mayweather fight. I wonder how this compares to the number of media at the RWC…?
4. I love cricket but (like it or not) it is a minority sport. The majority of the world cares nothing for the game. US, China, Russia, Most of Africa, France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Argentina etc…..
Enough with the fighting said | October 3rd 2007 @ 8:04am | Report comment
Controversial no, stupid is more the word I was looking for. Only a idiot would blabber this type of crap out load. Lay off the hard stuff before bed time. I am a South African living in Aus and I can tell you this country is sport/population the biggest sporting nation in the world.
Olympics : Gold and silver medal earning ratio over population is the highest in the world.
As my friend Joshua pointed out that Australia is untouchable in the Cricket that is viewed by more then 2 billion middle eastern Cricket supporters.
Now if the only thing you have on the table here is boxing then I don’t really think you qualify as sports analyst but Kosja Tzu was undesputed world champion?
I think either you are an idiot or trying to get a rise out of people but you only have to open your window in Australia to appreciate their love for sport. Sport grounds and facilities are everywhere, stadiums in every city… Look at the Sydney Olympics, Melbourne commonwealth games… MCG, F1 Moto GP….
I think you will find Australia for such an ill populated country is far more internationally sport orientated then 250 million obese Americans.
You must be joking, are you living in Aus?
Enough with the fighting said | October 3rd 2007 @ 8:09am | Report comment
Every sport you can name currently has or in past listed one or more Australian name… What other country can claim that?
Enough with the fighting said | October 3rd 2007 @ 8:21am | Report comment
I was yet again amazed by Australian sport the other day when I found out that they had a team represent Australia in break dancing at the world championships in Germany… In the short history of Aus they have managed to stake their claim on most sports and invented new ones.