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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   38816 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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This just seems like typical American bias to me. Room for dozens of baseball, football and basketball stars - no room for Ronnie O'Sullivan, Magnus Carlssen, or literally any rugby player. Federer and Williams over Nadal and Djokovic. Simone Biles in the top five and Kohei Uchimura in the 80s.

ITT: Messi mentioned once or twice, but well down the list.

I don't even like football, but when you consider it's the world's most widely played and competitive sport - Messi is so obviously at the top of any global athlete list that any suggestion to the contrary is pure parochialism.

FWIW, Cricket is second, but given the split across three formats - there's no clear standout, giving room for Phelps or somebody at #2 ig.

Cricket's problem is that the 2000s didn't produce Cricket GOATs. Sachin Tendulkar is still viewed as the modern GOAT, and he's more so a late-90s figure. Then you have Don Bradman, whose records put him so far above every Cricket player, that modern cricketers struggle to stand out.

Yeah, you could maybe make a case for Kohli somewhere on the list, but he's not the kind of standout that a Warne or a Tendulkar were and of course no one holds a candle to Bradman.

Magnus is awesome but chess isn’t a sport.

Blitz Chess and Quarter back aren't THAT different from each other.

The way some of these guys sweat, and I mean in very particular ways, you could be misled...

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