The toughest sport in the world is...

Vintagekits

Boxing! According ESPN anyway!

Jigga

Baseball higher than distance cycling, rugby, rowing?
Wrestling in fifth, that's only a soap opera for imbeciles.
Golf in 51st, just ahead of Cheerleading? FFS who makes this sh!t up

ascanbe

This concept is so idiotic it barely merits discussion; no offence to the OP, realise you are only posting the ESPN survey.
All sports are different and none are intrinsically more skilfull/difficult than any other; people bring their innate skills/abilities, toughness and work ethic to any particular sport, not the other way around.
If you wished to judge the athletes participating in particular sports against one another a much more sensible way would be to compare the numbers who participate in each sport regularly/competitively from a young age; judge the competition that athletes have had to overcome in order to get to the top of their sport.
Even doing this correctly would be be very difficult; not to mention pointless.

hinault

professional cycling in my opinion

Reginald P. DuM

I agree with the cycling option. Though I'd imagine boxing is no walk in the park either!!

hinault

Reginald P. DuM wrote: »

I agree with the cycling option. Though I'd imagine boxing is no walk in the park either!!

I agree, boxing is brutally hard sport too.

Vintagekits

ascanbe wrote: »

This concept is so idiotic it barely merits discussion; no offence to the OP, realise you are only posting the ESPN survey.
All sports are different and none are intrinsically more skilfull/difficult than any other; people bring their innate skills/abilities, toughness and work ethic to any particular sport, not the other way around.
If you wished to judge the athletes participating in particular sports against one another a much more sensible way would be to compare the numbers who participate in each sport regularly/competitively from a young age; judge the competition that athletes have had to overcome in order to get to the top of their sport.
Even doing this correctly would be be very difficult; not to mention pointless.

Actually I think they made a pretty decent stab at it. Sure "American sports" are over represented and baseball should be well down the list but if you break down the various elements required in sports then I believe it is possiblr to compare and contrast the various sports. Of course it never going to be 100% accurate or please everyone as it involves personal opinion.

Jigga wrote: »

Baseball higher than distance cycling, rugby, rowing?
Wrestling in fifth, that's only a soap opera for imbeciles.
Golf in 51st, just ahead of Cheerleading? FFS who makes this sh!t up

I think they mean Olympic Greco-Roman type wrestling as opposed to WWF style.

Diabhal_Glas

Endurance wise Ultra-running is up there, especially the 24 hour events.

Vintagekits

Diabhal_Glas wrote: »

Endurance wise Ultra-running is up there, especially the 24 hour events.

hard on the lungs and legs but how hard is it to master?

Poly

The mental toughness required for olympic walking is staggering, imagine the slagging you'd get every day you went training

Diabhal_Glas

Vintagekits wrote: »

hard on the lungs and legs but how hard is it to master?

Well then that depends on how you are defining toughness.

Im looking at it from the perspective of pushing yourself to your limits of human endurance for 24 hours.
Knowing for that said 24 hours that you have to go go go and cannot let up or you lose.
How much hell are you going to have to go through for that race.
Cumulatively the tour de France would obviously a lot more pain than one 24 hour race.

And how hard is anything to master? really depends on how much of a natural aptitude you have to that discipline and how much you enjoy practicing.