rec.autos.simulators

:)

dave henrie

Is that why the USA is doing so well in tennis these days?

How many USA drivers are there in the Indy Racing League, Champ Cars,
or Formula 1?

But you're right, USA doesn't care about soccer (neither do I). For
one the the offsides rule is annoying and reduces the chance to score.
Even a blue line rule for offsides in soccer might help the game.
As it is, it's hard to get e***d when many games end up with a 0/0
or 1/1 score and then it's penalty kicks.

As far a the USA doing well in cycling, it could just be a fluke.

As an example, China has dominated table tennis for most of the last
30 years, but there was a 7 year period back in the 1990's where two
Swedish players dominated table tennis. One of them Jan Waldner, is
considered the best table tennis player ever, because of the number
of years he dominated the sport. It was a fluke, as Sweden is a small
country, and there's little chance that another player of that caliber
will ever appear again from Sweeden (or from any country).

That in itself guarantees football will never take off in the land where
winning is everything. ;-)

Andrew McP

Mitch

Show me a stick and ball player who can cycle up the Pre Sourde and I'll
call him an athlete.

Jan.
=---

The one testicled one's (former) best friend (and his wife) said he admitted
to them he used steroids and other illegal enhancements. The guy who won
today only did so because the top riders were taken out of the race because
someone *accused* them of cheating in the past (convenient how it happened a
day or two before the race start).  Ruined the race for me. Innocent until
at least SOME proof would be nice....like an admission of guilt to your best
friend.

--
David G Fisher

Similar, but Bjorn Borg won 5 times at Wimbledon, never won the US Open,
and it was a 4 to 5 year period where he was ranked number 1 on and off.
In Jan Waldner's case, after his first win, China built it's team with
the idea of beating Jan-Ove Waldner, but rarely accomplished this.
Waldner didn't have any super shots, but he didn't have any weakness
that could be exploited, so he continued to win many tournaments. This
actually lasted for 10 years or so, and he's been in the top 10 for over
20 years, in spite of the fact the game changed slightly (larger ball,
11 point games).

Here's a short clip of his play, well past his prime, but still a great
player, and he demonstrates his soccer skills at the end of one point.

http://jeffareid.net/real/tt2.wmv

Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan-Ove_Waldner

There are many soccer fans that agree with me on the offsides rule, especially
when a team gets a lead and the defenders just move up the field a bit,
because of this rule. A blue line rule like hockey would stop that.

I think part of the appeal of soccer is the luck factor, where the underdog
team has a descent chance of winning. You see a similar attitude with fans
that hate the idea of instant replays, because their teams suck, and they
need all the luck and/or bad calls they can't get so their favorite team
or player has some chance of winning.

One the other hand, table tennis rarely has upsets, yet is very popular
outside the USA (Europe and China). Must be a different fan base.

The Tour has been clouded in *** controversy for years now.
I can't see how anybody can claim it's even remotely clean.
No wonder they are all mutants.

Recently I heard someone say that any nation has a finite capacity for
nationally popular games. You need a critical mass of support for a game
to become popular, and growing up watching/participating in a few,
traditionally supported games is ingrained and self-perpetuating. So
it's very hard for minority sports to get a significant foothold,
although with a billion TV channels now all sports can now get at least
*some* coverage.

Andrew McP

I think you'll find some people have more credibility than others, and
are therefore more easily tolerated when they drift OT.

I class sport as topic drift in a group where we discuss sim racing,
which is a kind of sport for the every lazy ;-)

Andrew McP

dave henrie

At one time, table tennis was second only to soccer in terms of popularity
in Europe, but this could be a combination of many events, especially
during the cold months where an indoor sport is more popular. Germany and
many other countries sponsor their own table tennis teams (professional
players paid by their governments), and usually 2 or 3 teams at different
levels of play. In terms of participants in Europe, it's one of the
top sports in Europe (in the USA, it was bowling, not sure if this is still
true). Obviously, it's popular in China and most pacific rim countries.

A reference to Jan-Ove Walder in lists of player at end of this page (listed
by first names alphabetically):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_tennis