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Comment by ndsipa_pomu | Hacker News Reader

Alternatively, is it due to the ubiquity of soccer that particularly gifted individuals can be developed into their full potential? Someone that has a one-in-a-billion level of skill in something like frisbee-golf is less likely to be spotted and made into a professional player.

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Sprinting is probably the purest example of no child not having a shot. Kids like to run. In fact, running is probably the most comprehensively sampled sport in the world. It's virtually impossible for anyone with a remotely normal childhood and a gift for sprinting to not know that they have it. Every kid knows who the fastest kid on their playground is. Every kid knows who the fastest kid in their class is, and in their school. And the fastest kids in each school/neighborhood/whatever compete at higher and higher levels until one day the fastest one is eating Chicken McNuggets[1] and signing 30 million dollar endorsement deals.

[1] https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2020/04/21/usain-bolt-beijing...

> fastest one is eating Chicken McNuggets

Usain Bolt did so on a special occasion, he explained he just didn't know where to eat

It's pretty obvious his average meal is not "fast" food, he would never have reached this level else

This is the weird thing for me about some of these discussions. I'm not going to question Messi's ability or ability in general but I've always wondered how much "extraindividual" factors start to play a role in those upper tails that are incentivized. We talk about Messi like he's just a marble sculpture handed down from God but that's not the case.

Looking at the figure, for example, one thing I noticed was the gap between the two upper points and the rest. It's hard for me to imagine there aren't some missing points there.

In other fields or areas, I think you have to start asking about things like fraud, other vice, or circumstances.

As you suggest, there's probably also some unique things about international football that make it difficult to generalize to other things. Everything is probably a little unique in certain ways really, but the incentives are so extreme and the play is very visible.

One thing to note is that the stats in the article don't appear to be normalized to me. It's just a lot of "# of X since 2010". So, it makes sense that the best will be played more often and get more play time to help drive the separation greater.

This is so true when looking at the distribution of top olympic athletes Vs distribution of countries that invest in developing said athletes in their chosen sport.

Do you know of any sites offhand that discuss this? I can look it up but wasn't sure if there were some you'd recommend. The thing you're mentioning seems really important as an example in these kinds of discussions.

Actually, it's the yams[1].

[1] https://www.firstpost.com/sports/firstpost-explains-how-does...

As a fan of disc golf I pained and laughed at “frisbee-golf”. The distribution of talent and accomplishment in professional disc golf .. a relatively young sport .. wouldn’t surprise anyone here.

Apologies for any discomfort - I clearly should have put "disc golf".

It’s called ”frisbee golf” in Finland

US I've heard "frisbee golf" too, alternatively "frolf"/"frolfing"

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