Which Country is the Best Sporting Nation in the World?
With Spain lifting the FIFA World Cup last night, the question arises as to which nation in the world is the greatest when measured purely by sports. This question is so fraught with problems to answer that it often leads to some serious debate among sporting purists. The criteria of measuring which nation is the greatest is so lengthy and complicated that most people do not even bother to get into it. The judging criteria can be narrowed down to world ranking in many different sports or it can be done on how many world championships are currently held by a country. Whichever way it is done there is no easy way to answer this question.
The country that is in the running for the title of greatest sporting nation is Spain. At the moment Spain are the football world champions and the football European champions, they are the basketball world champions and the basketball European champions, they have won the Tour De France for the last four years and Rafael Nadal has just won Wimbledon and has won the French Open as well. Now that is a pretty good tally of sporting competitions to have won. The country seems to produce some very talented and skilled athletes.
The country that usually tops any list of sporting contests is the USA. The country has an uncanny ability of producing some of the world's greatest athletes. From the best Olympian ever; Michael Phelps to some of the greatest tennis stars; the Williams sisters, to the best basketball players in the world, they just keep on churning them out. They usually also have the most number of gold medals at any Olympic Games and they are now challenging the world's football domination by producing some very talented footballers in the country. One of the reasons why America produces so may top level athletes is because they have a large population and they spend a lot of money on promoting athletics and sports at every level of competition; from school level to the professional leagues. A lot of time and effort is also produced to help athletes reach their full potential.
One country that is coming up the ranks in the world of sports is China. The country has started producing some high level athletes that are challenging the dominance of the Americans. In recent rankings, China placed second behind the USA and they had shown the best levels of improvement by jumping from fourth place to second. A country with such a huge population has a choice of talented people to choose from but they have also started to spend a lot of money on developing quality athletes for the future. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 really showcased China's talent for producing some world class athletes.
It is interesting to note that many countries do not play certain sports. For instance, the USA does not play cricket and the UK does not play American football at a professional level. So how does one rank teams that play a variety of sports? America by far plays the widest variety of sports of any country and so is it fair to judge them on all those sports. A fair way to do it could be to either use a scoring system by sports played regardless of what those sports were. For instance any time a country comes first in a sporting event they get a certain number of points. Any time they finish second they get another set of points and so on. This way a universal scoring record could be kept. Another way to do it could be to use the Olympics as a benchmark. Whichever country wins the most gold medals or produces the best athletes can lay claim to the crown.
Whichever way it is done, someone somewhere will not agree with it and we will be back at square one trying to determine who is the best. Maybe it is time that we simply looked at individual sports and see who plays the best in them. Maybe rivalries and competitions to see which country is the best need to stop and we need to just go back to enjoying sports for the fun and exciting encounters they are.
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