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I agree with you. Of course it doesn't get remotely close to how passionate people get about team sports. The audience and money involved in these won't be beat anytime soon, simplify due to traditions.
But your comment is short-sighted because you don't seem interested in sprinting or track and field sports and haven't been following recent events coming out of that space.
Just as an example, have you seen what Marcell Jacobs did for his country, being the first Italian sprinter to ever win a world championship, not just once but a couple of times, defying the Jamaican and American hegemony against all odds? He became an overnight sensation, was on the cover of a bunch of magazines, and inspired millions in his country. Nowadays he's under a lot of criticism because he couldn't keep his position exactly because sprinting requires the utmost physical and mental toughness. > At best, it's designed to test fitness, but it even fails at that really > You don't socialize with sprinting, and most people wouldn't use 100m sprinting as an activity to improve their fitness FAILS to test fitness? Really? Have you ever read anything about sports science and psychology?
First, athlets don't compete singularly in the 100m sprinting event, a lot of them compete in different modalities, like the 100m, 200m, relays, etc. Sprinting 100m and specially the 400m are considered the hardest races for humans. It tests endurance, lactic acid build-up, pacing, mental toughness, strategy at the rawest level, and not to mention the mental preparation you have to have to deal with the pressure and criticism of the media, when you're on the track being viewed by millions and you have just a few seconds to prove yourself. How is that not testing someone's fitness well?
You just can't isolate 100m sprinting especially as an activity. Sprinting up to your 100% max heart rate is excellent for fitness, muscle growth, and longevity. There's a lot of research on this coming out with concrete data about the benefits of sprinting vs other kinds of sports. |