And the Toughest Sport is..........

[InactionMan]

ESPN has taken it upon themselves to rank the world of sports to conclude once and for all which sport is the toughest. And much like a Rolling Stone article ranking the 50 greatest guitar players ever it is sure to inspire debate.

Employing a ranking system covering different attributes like endurance and hand-eye co-ordination ESPN's experts have declared that Boxing is numero uno.

Here is the top ten:

Boxing
Ice Hockey
Football
Basketball
Wrestling
Martial Arts
Tennis
Gymnastics
Baseball/Softball
Soccer
Skiing: Alpine

Full list is here (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills?GT1=3256#)

Agree? Disagree? Don't Care?

[ast3r3x]

Toughest as in how? Most likley to hurt or hardest to do?

[ericg]

Toughest sport... Australian Football

[norfa]

A number of years ago the Toronto Star ran a story on 3 sport athletes. They were all pretty much in agreement, basketball takes the most skill. Now if by toughest, you mean more physically demanding, that would be easy. Take the various sports and see which has the most injuries per man/hour of competition, and boxing might well come in first. I have a feeling the ranking above is just designed to spark debate.

[FormerLurker]

In terms of sports I know well and have personally participated in competitively, I would select Water Polo, which comes up as #11 in their rankings.

I also enjoyed seeing what made the bottom 10:

Golf
Cheerleading
Roller Skating
Equestrian
Archery
Curling
Bowling
Shooting
Billiards
Fishing

[superkarate monkeydeathcar]

what, no rugby?
i agree with boxing, wrestling should be in there too.

after about 3 rounds of boxing, just holding your hands up is death. but letting them down is worse.

[GreggWSmith]

What about Lacrosse? Hockey and Lacrosse are the toughest team sports.

[Wrong Robot]

I dislike lists like these.

[DMBand0026]

Y'all forgot about swimming.
Hardest sport in the world, hands down. Most people can't do 25 meters without almost having a heart attack.

Water polo is up there on the list too, for those of you who've never seen it, it's a mixture between swimming, soccer, rugby, wrestling, and football, all in the water. Although it's a ton of fun, that's why I don't consider it as hard as swimming.

[FormerLurker]

Originally posted by DMBand0026
Y'all forgot about swimming.
Hardest sport in the world, hands down. Most people can't do 25 meters without almost having a heart attack.

Water polo is up there on the list too, for those of you who've never seen it, it's a mixture between swimming, soccer, rugby, wrestling, and football, all in the water. Although it's a ton of fun, that's why I don't consider it as hard as swimming.

Big surprise, I had some of the same thoughts. :D
And I was amazed and disgusted to see Distance Swimming coming at a ranking of #36.

They more or less arbitrarily included things like Durability, Nerve steadiness, Hand-eye coordination, and Analytical Aptitude - elements obviously not present in every sport.

I think the Hand-Eye Coordination scores are the biggest reason why water polo (6.25) did so much better overall than swimming (2.75), although it also scored twice as high for Nerves. On Endurance, distance swimming (9.25) was #3 behind distance track and distance cycling.

Perhaps this should be called "Sport requiring the widest range of skills" instead of "Toughest".

[Messiahtosh]

Football (American Style).

[rageous]

Baseball has absolutely no place in any list containing the word "tough".

[Stoo]

Most people can't do 25 meters without almost having a heart attack.

Or, in my case, treading water and coughing up water (I'm bad at breathing while swimming). :)

The biathlon must be hard, as its alpine skiing, but with rest intervals of target shooting. I'd quite like to give it a go, but Scotland hasn't had much snow recently.

Cycling is quite tough, due to the strain the athletes place themselves under. In an article on the British cyclist Graham Obree, one of his musings on the hour distance record (at 38 ) was that it might place him too near the "death zone". The possibility of non-accidental, real and possibly life shortening damage must count towards "toughness". :wow:

edit: pesky smilies...

[Splinemodel]

Here's my top 4

1) Hurling
2) Ice Hockey
3) Various distance running events. . . the steeplechase is a tough one.
4) Rugby

Of these, I've done them all except hurling, but I've seen enough on TV to never want to think about doing it. I'd also like to say that any endurance sport is tough. Running a 10k in under thirty minutes. . . takes a few days to recover. Boxing might be the toughest in that respect, but I don't know much about it, so I can't really comment.

How basketball got in there is a big question mark for me. I think it's fun, but it's much less physically demanding than ice hockey, good soccer, or most other running sports, plus there's really no hitting. When basketball player moan all over the court and go down with cramps. . . it makes me really question if they are men at all.

[rok]

water polo, easy. take the physical endurance of swimming, the skill/rules of soccer, and throw in the possibility of drowning.

ice hockey is damn close, simply due to the speed at which it occurs, but i have never been a fan of sports that require more than person-object-goal or less. i just can't get into a sport where the quality of your stick, wicket, racket, bat, or club can turn a competition. maybe that's just me...

i might say triatheletes or decatheletes, but those areas are really just separate sports glommed together to make events. i'm not saying they're not tough areas to excel in, but they seem to be an exception.

[Splinemodel]

Originally posted by rok
ice hockey is damn close, simply due to the speed at which it occurs, but i have never been a fan of sports that require more than person-object-goal or less. i just can't get into a sport where the quality of your stick, wicket, racket, bat, or club can turn a competition. maybe that's just me...


While there is equipment in hockey, it's all pretty much the same. That is, unless you're playing with rusty skates and a broken stick, if you're good, your skill will still come out. I think there's actually more equipment variability in tennis, since two different racquets can be so much different. Two hockey sticks may have different stiffnesses and curves, but a good player can usually compensate to a pretty good degree.

Anything played in the water is going to be difficult for sure, but watersports seem so silly to me. . . somehow even more silly than strapping on skates and blasting around on an ice sheet. ;)

[Wrong Robot]

Yeah, hockey is great, I played it most of my youth, mostly street hockey though, just sticks and a roller ball, sometimes we'd have goals, sometimes we'd have skates, either way, we had a lot of fun!!

I barely played ice hockey, maybe twice, but I used to go to kings games all the time.

[Moogs]

Basketball is a much easier sport to master than Hockey; have no idea what the Toronto Star people were thinking. If I had to rank North American team sports, it would be something like this:

Sport Requiring the Most Phyiscal Toughness
1) Football
1a) Hockey

3) Basketball
4) Soccer
5) Baseball

Sport Whose Skills are Most Difficult to Master
1) Hockey
2) Baseball
3) Soccer
4) Basketball
5) Football


Toughest Sport to Excel at Overall
1)Hockey (by a LONG way)
2)Baseball
3)Soccer
4)Basketball
5)Football

[Artman @_@]

Toughest...boxing definately and rugby. Plus others listed of course.

Surprised NASCAR or other racing sports weren't even mentioned. The most typical problems for a race car driver are muscle fatigue, dehydration and cramps. But also the physical wear from g forces and crashes (of course). Hearing, brain melt and foot/neck/back injuries...even the vibration effects the eyes it's a damn tough sport and should have been mentioned. Dangerous sport yes, but tough too.

Russian motorcycle ice rink racing too. Damn scary sport. Two inch nails in the tires...

:smokey:

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by Moogs
Basketball is a much easier sport to master than Hockey; have no idea what the Toronto Star people were thinking. If I had to rank North American team sports, it would be something like this:

Sport Requiring the Most Phyiscal Toughness
1) Football
1a) Hockey

3) Basketball
4) Soccer
5) Baseball

Sport Whose Skills are Most Difficult to Master
1) Hockey
2) Baseball
3) Soccer
4) Basketball
5) Football


Toughest Sport to Excel at Overall
1)Hockey (by a LONG way)
2)Baseball
3)Soccer
4)Basketball
5)Football
have you ever played golf???? that should be near the top of your hardest to master. theres a huge difference between being able to go out and shoot a decent score with your friends every couple of weekends, but getting to the level of the PGA guys takes way more than a lot of those on your lists.

I say toughest physically, rugby hands down. Toughest to master, golf is near the top, with hockey.

[job]

Most Physically Demanding: Steeplechase

Most Physically Punishing: Boxing

Most Physically Draining 400 Meter hurdles

I challenge anyone to say that the 400 Meter hurdles and steeplechase aren't "tough."

:p :D

Edit: Although one could also claim that the hurdles and steeplechase are single events, events that constitute the sport of Track and Field. Thus, while Track and Field is not "tough" as a whole, individual events such as the hurdles may be far more demanding.

[Moogs]

Originally posted by ipodandimac
have you ever played golf????

Yes, all the way to single digit handicaps at one point. Notice I said "team sports".

:)


I say toughest physically, rugby hands down....

Again, "North American"... Rugby is more a dominant sport in Australia, New Zealand, S. Africa, and parts of Europe I think. But were it to be American, I would list it as #1 on the "Sport Requiring the Most Physical Toughness" category. Probably near the bottom of the list in toughest to master.

[Splinemodel]

Originally posted by Moogs
Basketball is a much easier sport to master than Hockey; have no idea what the Toronto Star people were thinking. If I had to rank North American team sports, it would be something like this. . .


Yeah. . . Hockey takes like two years AT LEAST just to figure out. But what AN AWESOME TIME! Wow. It must be the most fun sport I've ever played, and I've played a lot of sports competitively.

The two most intense sports I've played are ice hockey and steeplechase. Both can require major recup time. Rugby does too, but not ALWAYS. IIRC auto racing was up there on some of the metrics. For sure there's a lot of mental fatigue. Hell, even winning the 787B in GT3 takes a lot of mental fatigue!

[Eugene]

Originally posted by rageous
Baseball has absolutely no place in any list containing the word "tough".
Except when you get beaned in the helmet like Sammy did last year...or even Edgar Martinez in the All-Star game.

Or when you're a catcher and you spend your entire career crouching, standing, crouching, standing...get run-over at the plate by a guy determined to knock the ball out of your mitt.

Or when you're a pitcher and the hitter slams a come-backer at 130+ mph right back at your head.

Or if you're junior Griffey, hurting your shoulder while making a leaping dive for an uncatchable ball.

Or if you're Johnny "Jesus" Damon, so focused on catching a ball that you run into your own teammate at full speed and knock heads.

Or Alex Cora who dove headfirst into another player at second base and was lying unconscious on the field for about 15 minutes.

Or Ray Durham who mistimed a feet-first slide into third base, had his cleat catch on the bag while his body flew over it.

Or Marcus Giles + Mark Prior colliding...

Or...

Baseball's pretty unforgiving over time. Just ask Vladmir Guerrero, Mo Vaughn, Kirby Puckett, Dave Dravecky, etc.

[KingOfSomewhereHot]

The first thing that came to my mind was a triathalon ... I helped a friend train for one last year.

But in looking at the list, I see they list swimming, clycling, and running as separate events... and as such I wouldn't include them in the top 10 either ...

Put them all together, though ... I'd think the triathalon would be right up there with boxing. Especially that handful of atheletes that WIN triathalons !

[jwri004]

Yeah, I thought Ironman's would rate highly.

I also thought that more people died while fishing than any other sport :D

[Moogs]

We should probably have a list for individual sports and competitions. Iron Man is brutal, as is the Tour de France, Decathlon, etc.

As for baseball, there are brief moments that require toughness, but getting hit by pitches, or steam-rolling catchers at home plate or slamming into walls... those things do not happen every game. For most players they don't even happen every week.

Baseball's difficult parts come into play with hitting curve-balls, sliders, knucklers, etc. Snagging hard grounders on the run, pivoting and throwing accurately in one motion, is also difficult. And of course pitching itself is very hard to master.

But hockey is harder still. Until you've tried it a few times, you really cannot appreciate just how difficult it is to do all the things these guys do, on skates, at relatively high speeds, and with other skaters trying to knock you around. It's DAMN difficult to get good at it, to the point where you have real confidence all the time.

[Wrong Robot]

For what it's worth, while I wouldn't claim it to be amongst the toughest per se. Ultimate Frisbee is a burly sport. It's all running, jumping, colliding, falling over and throwing. All with no special gear to speak of, all very fast paced. That said, for me, Soccer is burlier, as is hockey, as is Basketball, but ultimate is definitely worth mentioning.

I played some indoor soccer not too long ago, it was intense! loads of fun, but tough!.

[Shadow Slayer 26]

First off, sorry to bring this back from the dead, but perhaps some new opinions would be found a few years later, on a subject still quite relevant?

First off, pretty odd how I found this. I just heard about ESPN's hardest sport the other week and, as a swimmer, was pretty disappointed by how it ranked. So I googled "swimming hardest sport" to see if anyone else agreed that it was at least up there...low and behold, second hit is AppleInsider, a forum I've been coming to for my tech news...:D


Secondly, I would like to say that swimming definitely deserves more credit. Of course, this would be expected from a swimmer, but I have to ask how many people actually know how precise of a sport swimming can be. Whether it's angling your wrist a bit more so it's inline with your forearm (allowing you to use not only your hand, but your arm as a paddle) or perfecting your streamline, the technique involved in swimming is often overlooked.

Besides technique the training is also extremely difficult. Currently, I'm on a highschool team, and though we don't train at quite the intense levels as I do the other nine months of the year at my club team, we still often times swim more each day than the cross country team runs. Then theres the different kinds of training...i could go on and on.


I would also like to mention Martial Arts lower rank than Boxing...doesn't seem quite right. Martial Arts allow for much harder beatings. Muay Tai (sp?) for example...most of those athletes retire quite early as their body can no longer take the beatings. and by early, i mean as early as 2 years after they go pro.

Just my 2 cents, hopefully this topic will bring in some new opinions ;)

[bobmarksdale]

Marathon?

I did a half back in October at a 6:54 pace, which is decent for an amateur such as myself, but nowhere near the 5-ish that some guys get to. Left me sleeping/throwing up for the rest of the day.

And if you want the most physically gruelling competition at all?

Ulta-marathons:
100+ miles or just the 'run as far as you can in 48 hour' ones. Perhaps the Death Valley one where it's 135 miles in >100° heat. Fun.

But as that is a niche sport, I would say Rugby, Boxing, and Ultimate Fighting.