Talking Footy

The issue of Australian football taking away talent from other sports has been raised by trolls from many different forums. The claim was that Victoria didn't represent Australia with an many athletes compared to other states due to all the Victorian talent playing Australian football. My question: is there any basis for this or is this just urban legend?
I thought that a good study would be to work out if Australia's London Summer Olympic squad had a similar amount of Victorians in it percentage wise compared to the Victorian population percentage compared to the Australian population. Being the primary author of a scientific paper on Cancer statistics in the late 90's I had some background in statistical analysis.
The first step was to work out the Victorian population compared to the rest of Australia. Not caring to much I went for a wiki site for my source. It was a little out of date but that didn't bother me (2010).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_lis ... erritories

It showed that the Victorian population was roughly about 25% of the total Australian popluation (24.8%)

Now the next question was to work out what would be the statistically significant percentage for a population the size of the Olympic squad to be Victorian and that percentage still be considered in the normal range. Now again due to laziness I choose not to work out the exact percentage. It could probabaly be as low as 15%, however to perhaps silence the trolls I have decided to go for a percentage of 20%. So in other words if the Victorian popluation of the Olympic squad is less then 20% then this would indicated that there is a factor (such as AFL taking the talent) involved reducing the percentage of VIctorian talent. If someone wants to do the maths they can feel free to work out a real statistically significant percentage if they want.


Now an initial squad has been formed, however it is not compete. So I will work out the percentage of Victorians from the claimed state of origin postered by the following web site.

http://london2012.olympics.com.au/athle ... e-profiles

So far 15 VIC 132 total with 6 unlisted state wise.

15/126 X 100 = 12% so far are from Victoria.

Missing squads: Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Cycling - BMX, Cycling - MTB, Cycling - Road, Equestrian - Dressage, Equestrian - Eventing, Gymnastics - Trampoline, Hockey, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Shooting, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Water Polo, Weightlifting, Wrestling and I am sure many others events are not completely filled.

Great thread, the vFL is crushing every sport world wide, give it 6 months and every kid in China will be fumbling, bumbling and gargling as well as the fumbletards from vicotardia =D>

I bet they start off with the glory holes first.

ParraEelsNRL wrote:

Great thread, the vFL is crushing every sport world wide, give it 6 months and every kid in China will be fumbling, bumbling and gargling as well as the fumbletards from vicotardia =D>

I bet they start off with the glory holes first.

You seem confused. Maybe you should read the thread it might make more sense to you then.

ParraEelsNRL wrote:

Great thread, the vFL is crushing every sport world wide, give it 6 months and every kid in China will be fumbling, bumbling and gargling as well as the fumbletards from vicotardia =D>

I bet they start off with the glory holes first.

thank god the melee or a sport resembling one doesnt exist.

but yeah nice thread here pies. I'll tell you one thing, the AFL isnt taking away sporting stars from other sports. There's many more RL players who could make it to the AFL and RL wouldnt suffer at all. The number and level of this codes athletes is supreme in this country.

Additionally, it doesnt matter too much that marngrook is not an olympic sport. This doesnt mean this code is taking away from other sporting stars imo. Plenty of stars coming up in the other sports anyway. It is interesting though to see these stats of vic for the olympics coming in. It either shows that marngrook is quite dominant or that parraeels terminology for victorians, i think it was vickytards or something like that, may actually be more accurate than we first thought.

Hmmm]

King-Eliagh wrote:

thank god the melee or a sport resembling one doesnt exist.

but yeah nice thread here pies. I'll tell you one thing, the AFL isnt taking away sporting stars from other sports. There's many more RL players who could make it to the AFL and RL wouldnt suffer at all. The number and level of this codes athletes is supreme in this country.

Additionally, it doesnt matter too much that marngrook is not an olympic sport. This doesnt mean this code is taking away from other sporting stars imo. Plenty of stars coming up in the other sports anyway. It is interesting though to see these stats of vic for the olympics coming in. It either shows that marngrook is quite dominant or that parraeels terminology for victorians, i think it was vickytards or something like that, may actually be more accurate than we first thought.

HaHa are you suggesting that Victorians are bad a sports. I found that last line quite amusing. About half of the team at the moment is the swimming team. It could be because it is to cold to get into the water in Victoria at 5 am in the morning to train. I think the AFL is good in the way it offers about 1000 young men the oppotunity to be a professional athlete. In my opinion if you can make a good living out of playing sport that is never a bad thing.

5 new members are in. Wrestling and Triathlon. 3 of the new members are Victorian. 18/131 X100 =

14% Victorian.

An interesting point about the Olympic squad is that Victoria only makes up 4% of the swimming team. 2 out of 46. If you remove the swimming team from the olympic team about 20% of the rest of the team is Victorian.

piesman2011 wrote:

An interesting point about the Olympic squad is that Victoria only makes up 4% of the swimming team. 2 out of 46. If you remove the swimming team from the olympic team about 20% of the rest of the team is Victorian.

And this would be the main issue. A number of sports are water related and warmer states would be over represented while colder states under represented.

But the majority of sports are not water related so lets not read into things too much. And a pool is a pool, they're heated and all over this country. Swimming is part of the national curriculum and victoria is a state with rivers and oceans dominating a large area, meaning swimming should be a valued skill for all of them to learn. Saying its a wee bit chilly down there is no excuse, it's just lazyness on the part of the victorians.

Now lets just wait and see piemans final results, its still early days as far as i can see. But it sure doesnt look healthy for those from victoria.

two more teams in Pentathlon and Shooting. 8 out of 19 are Victorian. 26/150 X100 = 17% Victorian. Looks like Victorians love to shoot things. 17% of the team is now Victorian.

piesman2011 wrote:

two more teams in Pentathlon and Shooting. 8 out of 19 are Victorian. 26/150 X100 = 17% Victorian. Looks like Victorians love to shoot things. 17% of the team is now Victorian.

I'd love to shoot a few people on this forum that's for sure!