Originally Posted by
Commodus
...
A sport's merit is thus tied to its participation and whether it's relatable to something in the real world. You can say anything is a sport, but if the activity being contended is too contrived, at some point people just shrug their shoulders and say, "well okay you're great at tiddly winks, but who cares?"
Does that apply to the sports being discussed? Maybe, maybe not.
By your estimate, since many many more people participate in baseball than cycling, or football than cycling, or basketball than cycling, then cycling is less important than those three sports. Cycling is a really obscure sport in the US.
Sport is about athletics. It's about strength, agility, coordination, and the spirit of competition. That's all sport has ever been about. The fact you can bike to work is pretty secondary to everything sport is about. The benefit of sport is far deeper than whether you can multi-use the equipment.
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Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
the tiniest sprinter