Does a country’s people have to be interested in a sport…?

Question

*Full questions:

+Is there a correlation between having a population that enjoys (enjoy, as in play) a certain sport – and having a medal-winning national team (and reputation etc.)?

+And do you think a country can produce a medal-winning team, even if the average boy/ girl/ man/ woman does not play, or care/ know anything about the sport?

Answer 1

Yes.  And yes.

Look at our gymnasts, our swimmers, our 1980 hockey team.  America's favorite pasttimes are baseball and football, yet we've medaled historically all around.  

Basketball is the answer to the first part of your question.  NBA allstars make it more fun to watch.

MR

Answer 2

1. In a free country

2. In a Communist country

Answer 3

Look at speed skating.  About .0004% of the US population participates in that and we have a pretty great history of Olympic success in speed skating.

Answer 4

1.  Yes....basketball, softball and soccer and good examples of this.

2. Yes...Australia were one of the medal favorites in mens and womens hockey (although they both bombed out unfortunately) and hockey is really not a popular sport here. Certainly not as popular as swimming, tennis, netball, softball and i'd would even say soccer is more popular for women than hockey is in Australia. It's never shown on tv until the olympics come on and I don't think I can even name one of our players.  Yet we're still really good at it.