Every year, many sports associations, together with popular magazines, create sports ratings that are evaluated by many indicators. In this review, we will look at sports in terms of difficulty and find out which sport is considered the most difficult in the world.
Popular American journalist Billy Dip, together with the independent American sports association "Unbiased America Sports", created a rating of sports according to the complexity of mastering.
Experts evaluated each sport on several parameters: strength, endurance, short-term power, agility, composure, flexibility, wear resistance, hand-eye coordination, and analytical skills.
According to this rating, boxing is the most difficult sport in the world, and hockey is the second most difficult. American football is in third place. The same three sports, but in reverse order, were included in the ranking of the most popular sports for betting.
Interestingly, this list also includes the simplest sports, which, according to the association, are fishing and billiards.
This choice of association is explained by the fact that fishing does not require daily heavy physical exertion, and every person at any age can learn this sport. In addition, everyone can also reach a professional level.
Unlike these simple sports, boxing, hockey, and football require daily physical activity, and to become a professional, you need to practice from an early age.
Features of a boxing match
Boxing involves the battle of two rivals in the ring, each of which seeks to score the most points. Boxers strike with their hands.
In this sport, there are very high risks of harming not only health but also life. Throughout the history of boxing, there have been a huge number of athletes who have passed away due to the presence of serious health problems that began to appear after the end of their professional careers. Boxers are exposed to serious risks every day.
Basic boxing rules
The fight in boxing is divided into rounds, each of which lasts from 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the level of the fight. In professional sports, the round is longer than in amateur sports. Boxers have 1 minute to rest between rounds.
A boxing match may end earlier in some cases:
- one of the athletes is knocked down and will not be able to get up for 10 seconds;
- after the third knockdown (the rule applies to title fights under the auspices of the WBA);
- one of the athletes was injured and could not defend himself (technical knockout).
If the time of the fight is over, and both opponents are up to the end, but there is no knockout, then the winner is determined by the number of points. Sometimes it happens that the score is the same by the number of points - in this case, the boxer who won the most number of rounds by points becomes the winner. Draws rarely happen.
In addition to the fact that boxers are prohibited from striking with any part of the body other than the fist, they are also prohibited from hitting below the belt, holding an opponent, pushing, biting, spitting, and wrestling.
Research data
In 2004, the American sports channel ESPN conducted a large-scale study to identify the most difficult sports. To solve this problem, a special expert commission was organized, which included scientists, athletes, and journalists. Each of the experts rated each sport on a ten-point scale, taking into account several necessary sports requirements. The winner was determined by the average coefficient, which was displayed as a result of summing up the points scored.
According to the voting results, the ESPN Commission recognized boxing as the clear leader among the most difficult sports. This sport received a score of 72.37 and topped the ranking of the most dangerous sports. This was later confirmed by the International Olympic Committee.
In addition to the fact that professional boxing is associated with enormous physical exertion, it is also extremely traumatic. Every year, many professional athletes die from injuries sustained as a result of missed shots in competition or during training.
As mentioned above, for many people, the severe health effects of boxing are felt decades later.
In 2012, Swedish scientists from the Sahlgren Medical Academy at the University of Gothenburg reported that not only professional but even amateur boxing causes serious harm to health. And this is even though, during amateur competitions, the heads of athletes are protected by a helmet.
According to a study of 30 Swedish boxers, four different types of proteins are elevated in the brain fluid of athletes after a match, indicating damage to the brain's nerve cells.
If we consider professional boxing, then its destructive effect on brain cells has been known to the medical community for a long time - and these data are confirmed by official independent studies. According to neurological studies, up to 20% of professional boxers suffer from Dementia pugilistica, better known as boxing dementia. The reason is the recurrence of head injuries received in the ring.
Hockey
It is also worth mentioning the sport, which, due to its danger, occupies the second line of the rating. This is ice hockey.
This type of competition scored a little fewer points than boxing. ESPN experts gave classic ice hockey a score of 71.75. This sport is also included in the ranking of the most traumatic Olympic sports, and experts from the University of British Columbia included hockey in the top three in terms of injuries, along with basketball and football.
The most common and, at the same time, the easiest injury in this sport is knocked out teeth, and the number of serious injuries and injuries as a result of an opponent’s attack, falls, puck hits, etc., tens of thousands of cases annually. Among the severe injuries, which often even lead to death, the most common injuries are the head and back.
American football
American football is the third most dangerous sport in the world. ESPN gave American football a score of 68.37. Scientists at the University of North Carolina conducted a study, the results of which showed that American football is the most dangerous sport in the United States.
Over the past 30 years, the number of American athletes who have died during the game has been about 200. The cause of severe injuries and death of athletes is often caused by heart overload, physical exhaustion, complex collisions of players on the field, and heatstroke.
Today, experts are even developing special chips to measure the body temperature of athletes to reduce the number of heat strokes during the game.
In this rating of hardest sports, you may also find other sports such as water polo, figure skating, horseback riding, martial arts, and some team sports.
Conclusion
Thus, even though there are many traumatic sports, boxing takes first place in the ranking of the most dangerous sports in the world as it is the most physically demanding sport. In addition to the fact that athletes experience heavy physical exertion during training and fights every day, this sport is also dangerous because negative consequences can appear after the end of a sports career. Thus, no athlete can be immune from health problems. In addition, a large number of athletes dread in the ring from heavy blows and injuries that are not compatible with life.