“hundreds of tiny bones in his toes and ankle are subject to several tonnes of mass” Will?

Last time I checked, each foot has 26 bones.

Perhaps that’s the problem with the England bowling attack. They’ve all got too many bones in their feet.

Cheers

So are the South African ones. There was even an SA cricketers golf tournament. Rubbish ’sport’, and sooooo boring to watch.

Golf? Bluuuhhh! The ball isn’t even moving when they hit it. A bit like shooting a sitting duck or what? Plus, can you imagine any self-respecting Test team wearing Rupert the Bear trousers? (okay, okay, forget the Packer years and the WIndies in pink, willya?)
Imagine, if you ca, KP at bat, Warne bowling from the Pavilion end, “Ha! the old leg break, eh? Pass me a 3 iron for this shot, Hoggs, old boy.”

God, what a nightmare. Sorry folks, the heat must be getting to me.

Totally agree with all the above - boring, lacking in anything skillful, interesting or physical. However, Will, you can’t actually have a “birdie par” . . . sorry to point that out.

To quote a certain somebody who said to his flabby friend,

“I hesitate to call golf a sport, because then I would have to call you an athlete.”

For Chappell’s view on which game is more mentally tough, read this short quote:

http://yorker.wordpress.com/2005/12/24/sabbatical/

Yes, cricket is more physically demanding then golf, but not as demanding as some of the other sports — such as football. Cricket’s had its share of tubbies as well, although that’s increasingly rare nowadays where even Test cricket is very competitive. This is a cricket blog, so bias against golf is not entirely unexpected. But to really find out which sport is tougher, we need to ask people who’ve played both sports well for several years.

Ricky Ponting plays of some ridiculas handicap of 4 or 5 or somthing!
I actually dont mind golf! But i shouldn’t of said that here in fear of my life!

A few niggling points from someone who agrees with the basic premise that golf is not very interesting. It’s hard in the sense that to do it consistently without humiliation requires a lot of skill and practice and a bit of luck (and I read somewhere that the pros are not allowed to ride around in carts during tournaments), but even a bad golfer expects to come home at the end of a game with all his teeth and bones intact.

Any sport worth watching (and I’m not sure I put golf in this category) is going to be hard in some ways. I think people who have never played cricket don’t realize how challenging it is. They think the bat is a big paddle and the pace of the game is slow. They don’t see the speed of the ball, the bursts of intensity, the need for quick decision-making in 3 dimensions, or the need for constant prolonged mental focus. And they’ve never been hit by a bouncer or tried to take a bare-handed catch of a towering shot in the wind.

I’m not sure cricket is the most difficult, though. It’s extremely challenging in terms of skills (especially visual acuity), and it can be physically punishing (at least for England bowlers), but there are other sports which are perhaps more physically punishing or dangerous.

American football is one which comes to mind. You think that because people wear pads they’re safer than in rugby, but if a guy knows he’s padded he’s going to throw his body at you even harder. And lots of bodies crash together every play for 3 hours.

And there’s ice hockey. I remember seeing a tv commercial for hockey which just showed an x-ray of a hockey player’s hand with a doctor explaining that the guy had dislocated his thumb so many times that they decided it would be best to fuse the bones together so that there was no longer a joint to dislocate.

And there are sports where people can die, like motocross or even NASCAR.

Oh, and some Olympic sports are crazy difficult. Anyone want to say it’s easy to flip over 3 times in the air and land smoothly on a slope in skis? And how many here can land a triple Salchow? Even badminton is harder than it looks. The really great badminton players look like they’re not even moving while in fact they move more distance in a match than tennis players. And they have to intercept the bird at up to around 160 mph and hit it hard and as close to the net tape as possible or else very high and coming down to land right at the back line but not beyond it. On non-lob shots any air between the bird and the net tape means the next shot coming back at them will be even faster. Some of them are so good that the bird frequently skips up off the top of the tape.

er … think I’m gonna get sledged here a bit when I reveal some of my evil past. I … er … did a bit of martial arts, namely Kung Fu and Aikido. That was hard. Trying to beat the living crap out of someone without actually hurting them takes some skill and efort, you know?

golf is so much harder than any other sport, put it this way u have a golf ball which is a couple of centermetrs in diamiter and u have to get it into a hole 500 odd yards away in roughly 4 or 5 shots to have a half decent score. Also bring into acount what the weather could be like, wet, windy, cold etc etc u cricket pussys end the game wen it rains. pussys.

andd! YOUR DOING BACKHANDSPRIGNS && BACKTUCKS ON A BEAM THATS 4 INCHES WIDE DIPSHITS!

Gymnastics is by far the most difficult sport in the world. this sport is extremely dangerous and potentially life threatning. if you think training 15 hours a week is radiculas then try training 35 hours a week as elite gymnasts do. it also requires athletes to be extremely mature and mentally tough at such a young age as gymnastics requires young bodies. kids start from the age of five and if they want to make it big, from the very first day theyve gotta be tough. there not like some of the cry babies you see in football, when a gymnasts breaks a foot they try and get back up there and keep going until they phsyically realise they cant.oh and not to mention the fact that gymnastics is the most injury prone sport in the world. so to think that golf is the most hardest sport in the world, you must be soooo bais or completely insane. id like to see golfers and cricketers to give gym a go because it requires much more co-ordination then you think. i think people should start paying a little more intrest in gymnastics and give it the respect it deserves.

if you think the strength that other sports do is amazing, try doing 2 times an 8m rope climb with no legs as just one of the approximate 25-30 exercises in the strength that gymnats do daily. gymnastics is so demanding and leaves little to none time for the kids to do their school work. training starts at 6am and finishes at 7pm whilst school is fitted in the middle. infact more time is spent in the gym then at school. 6 and half hours a day is the usual for these young atheletes.

I KNOW the hardest sport is NOT golf, but dancing, think about it. Dancing IS a sport and a art, dancers go through MORE lengths of pain and training, than ANY football player. A dance teacher I know is a dance doctor and her statistics say that dancing is harder than any sport. also Gymnastics would probably come in 2nd place. You all say “I can get my leg up to my head!!!” BULL!!! TRY!!!

ok, dance is harder than any sport
i do gymnastics and dance and dance is by far so much harder.
it is the hardest on your muscles and you go through more training and more pain
i am on the canadian dance team and i am a competitive gymnast.
and no gymnasts may be able to do some things as dancers would but they are not gracefull and they are not such good turners
gymnastics also wouldnt even come in 2nd
there are actually harder sports
anyways
gymnasts or any other athletes would break their ankles and be in very deep pain if they ever tryed a high level of dance,
maybe they could pull off primary.
gymnasts may think oh yeah i break my foot i keep going,
dancers break their foot keep dancing looking gracefull with a big smile on their face.
it is also a proven fact that dance is the 2nd hardest sport and its not after gym, its after martial arts which i agree is very complicated.

obviously you were like a interclub level competitive gymnast, not a high level competeing one. Dance is simply not a sport. Consider this, you mention how in dance they make you do something complicated on floor, that just demonstrates how dance is easier, nothing in dance is scary or dangerous enough to need spotting. As for you claim its been proven as the 2nd hardest sport? Something like that can’t be proven, various media have made top 10 lists etc on what is the hardest sport and they’re all different, according to some gymnastics is number 1, and according to most dance doesn’t even make an appearance.

clearly you are not even considering mens gymnastics, you can’t compare an elite level mens rings routine to an elite level dancers hardest dance as far as strength goes. It is preposturous to say dance requires the sam strength as gymanstics. As for your claim that dance incorporates gymnastics, it encompasses as basic a level of gymnastics as gymnastics encompasses of dance. That is to say that you will NEVER see a dance routine incorporate a triple back tuck. You say it incorporates gymnastics implying dancers can do everything a gymnast can do, and then more, which is ridiculous considering female gymnasts have 4 disciplines, while male gymnasts have 6, dancers have one. As for your balance claime? How on earth can you say dancers have better balance than gymnasts, female gymnasts literally do standing backflips with a full twist 4 feet off the ground on a 4 inch wide beam. Yes dancers can pirouette more times than gymnasts but thats because that’s they’re specielty, but i really don’t feel that acts as enough evidence to actually plainly state dancers have better balance.
If dancers tried to do gymnastics they would break MORE than an ankle, probably a neck or spine, look at elite level vaults if you don’t believe me, or some of the uneven bars or beam mounts. Or dismounts on any event mens or womens.

You think dance is harder than gymnastics, which is really hilarious because its just absurd. I’m not saying your stupid but you have very little knowledge of elite level gymnastics, I don’t say this as an insult at all, i’m just saying you are a dancer and your knowledge (or lack there of) of gymnastics is really clear through your arguments. Its easy for you to now say that i know nothing about ballet or dance, but I my knowledge of the dance i’m sure surpasses your knowledge of gymnastics.

last thing, DANCERS DO NOT HAVE THE BRAVERY OF GYMNASTS, in male gymnasts to releases on highbar that involve letting go of the highbar at the top of your swing, doing a backflip witha full twist OVER THE BAR then catching the bar. A womens gymnastics feat off the top of my head would be a roundoff ariabian tuck OVER THE LOW BAR then catching the high bar. fyi, an arabian tuck is more or less a backflip with a half turn, but here its done over a wooden bar, then they catch the higher bar, so please don’t even try to say dance is scarier, that’s probably the most ridiculous claim you’ve made, besides the claim dance is actually harder than gymnastics.

your right all the evidence is there

lol. this article is pretty crazy. every detail you added in here applys to almost every sport. your body changes from day to day and must compromise through practice to make your game play the best possible. I believe you also mentioned practice for 6 hours each day. [which i highly doubt for most golfers, not to metion the intense workout they must indure on their electric carts.] I also read they are running during their daily practice, and I dont know the last time I saw a golfer running.
I am a gymnast, and i must say that it is ONE of the hardest sports in the world. elite gymnasts HAVE to pracitce 8 hours a day, rain or shine. Your body is constantly pounded into the groud and you must deal with iceing and muscle therapy on a daily basis. Not to mention, the mental preperation it takes. Gymnasts are doing mutliple flips in the air, not just off the floor but from a 12 foot bar, four inch wide beam, and so forth. Gymnastics HAS the most intese injuries, [along with motorcross] and has the youngest aged members. No offense, but if you can play the HARDEST sport at age 60, then its not too physically intense. Gymnastics requries the best physical fitness and performance.

stinna–what the hell do you do in dance that you consider hard, switch leaps, ariels, turns, leaps, jumps—well female gymnasts do all that and more- go on youtube dude and put in someone like carly patterson, shannon miller, or someone like that. Oh yeah, is dance in the olympics, no, well rhythmic gymnastics is haha. Only creditable dancing is applied to gymnastics. And almost ANY gymnasts quits gymnastics and becomes a cheerleader or a dancer lol, and that because it easier and takes lesss time and effort.

valentina is right. ballet is hard because it takes stamina and physical and mental endurance. butttt… a study proved that gymnastics is the hardest sport on earth. thats right people GYMNASTICS. not golf, not football, not wrestling. GYMNASTICS. personally, i think cheerleading comes after it, what we don’t do on the floor or beam, we make up in stunts.

I have to agree. I am a gymnast and although i am not an elite i know all the pain involved with high level gymnastics. I mean i am 12 years old, a level 8 gymnast and i have already had two surgeries do to injuries from gymnastics. Gymnastics is a beautiful sport a show of strength and artistry an opportunity to push the boundaries of physical capability about believing in the impossible. Gymnasts are powerful, graceful, amazing to watch and flexible beyond belief. Sometimes people forget that gymnasts are human too and just like everybody else we make mistakes but that doesn’t stop us from striving for perfection. You are in the gym for 20 hours a week and these are young kids too. In order to be good you have to start at ages between 2 and 4 just so you can be ready for Olympics at 16. please dont try to tell me that dance is harder. sure you have to be flexible ill give you that but gymnast need the same flexibility and we even do a lot of the leaps and jumps you do…but on a four inch beam!

shawn johnson, is that you?

i had to ask.

People… all yall know that golf is not the hardest sport there is… all you gotta do is swing at the ground and hop that you hit the fricken ball! I to am I gymnast and i have to work really hard to maintain my level. All of your muscles need to be in good shape so you can do your reutines and do them good. Your body doesnt need to be ripped for golf!

Gymnastics is definitely the roughest sport. Prep for big competitions is absolute hell. You’re doing 6 routines(at the least) each day, 2 or so on each event, plus at least 35-45 minutes of conditioning, then correcting mistakes,working new skills. And there are 6 events to work. A gymnast could easily spend a whole 4 hours on one event, but we have to squeeze 5 others in too. Other sports conditioning pales in comparison to gymnastics strength training. Plus in other sports you have three, maybe four things you need to do. In gymnastics you have 6 events, and each one takes months of training to get anywhere on. To be a high level competitive gymnast (lets say level 10) it takes at least 5 years of training(every day), and that’s if you’re talented. 10-15(every day) years to be good enough to be on a college team, 15+ years(every day!) and quite a bit of talent to be good enough to compete on a national team or the Olympics. Compare that to the time it takes to become good in another sport.

I was a level 10 competitive gymnast for 4 years and no other sport comes close to demanding the same amount of determination, strength, courage, dedication, and coordination. I had to quit because gymnastics was tearing my body up. Not from messing up, just from all the stress on my body. I’ve heard of very few people quitting other sports because it tore their body apart the way gymnastics does.

mkayy for all youu gayy losers who think golf and all that dumm crap is the hardest..
youu are deffinetly wronggggg.

mkay gymnastics is defff the hardesttttttt sport in the entire world

andd dancinggg isNOT the hardest sport either,
gymnastics involves almost everything that a dancerr does andd MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE!

andd guess whatt ?
softball & baseball is not harrdd !

i did gymnastics for 10 years, and i still couldnt do tonss and tonsss of skills.

i did softball for 1, and was freaking awesome.

so everyone needs to stfu !

okay,
mckenzie or whatever,
uhm yes i do agree that gymnastics is harder than dance but how you described it as “It takes dedication, hard work, sweat tears, all of that. Do you think svetlana or mary lou got to the olympics practicing 10 hours a week? no she practiced every day sunsris to after sunset!” that actually happens with most sports
and including dance,
and whoever says dance is not a sport a frkn idiot.
dance is harder than like EVERY OTHER SPORT, and you work harder
because honestly after gymnastics should come dance.
because dance incorporates lots of gymnastics, and its hard work,.
so stfu
“oooh golf is so much harder”
YEAH OKAY BUD,

So gymnastics is harder than cage-fighting is it? Yeah yeah, swinging about on those crooked bars is *really* hard…. MUCH more difficult than having the hell beaten out of you by an enormous psychopath, I’m sure…