Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps athletes poor

Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by Aelinsaar on Monday August 01, 2016 @12:01PM (#12203454)

Basketball is pretty unique, in that essentially relies on abnormally tall people. When you put that as a requirement in front of the many others you need to be successful in the NBA, it becomes clear why the field is so thin.

You see a few other places with similar fields though, like the absolute bleeding edge of traditional ballet, or some gymnastic events.

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Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by wldcordeiro on Monday August 01, 2016 @12:24PM (#12203678)

The classic case I always hear is jockeys too. It's not that odd, every sport is getting very specialized in athlete selection, in fact there's a great TED by David Epstein[0] talk about this kind of thing.

[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_...

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Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by mitchty on Monday August 01, 2016 @01:13PM (#12204129)

Gymnasts as well have similar size limitations in some cases. I know my one friend growing up was pretty much devastated when she grew to 5'8" (~170cm if my head conversion is close)

She said that being too tall made the balance beam harder as you had more chance to hit your head. I think been a while so anyone can correct me.

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Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by WalterBright on Monday August 01, 2016 @01:57PM (#12204479)

The taller you are, the much much harder it gets to rotate the body end over end.

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Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by wldcordeiro on Monday August 01, 2016 @02:46PM (#12204855)

I'm not even that tall and I learned that growing up, learning just how to do a front flip on a trampoline was tough being a "lerpy" kid.

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Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by xxs on Monday August 01, 2016 @03:02PM (#12205007)

More like 172... another issue are the longer limbs that require more strenght to balance the body

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Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by jessaustin on Monday August 01, 2016 @11:01PM (#12207597)

Jockeys are an interesting example, because women compete successfully alongside men, at very high levels. In that sense horse racing is among the least sexist of professional sports.

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Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath... by thrownblown on Monday August 01, 2016 @11:36PM (#12207703)

British Olympic medal winning cyclist Victoria Pendelton is now competing as a jockey.

At London 2012's Olympics she set a world record in the Team Sprint, got silver in the Match Sprint and gold in Keirin.

The irony here is that Olympic Keirin is derived from a Japanese/Korean betting sport, which is basically horse racing. But with people.

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