Reddit reviews Armada 2019 Invictus 99 Ti Skis (187)

It's a perfectly accurate take. Lets pretend you live in an area with every possible environment for any sport a mere walking distance away (so no holiday/flight/accommodation costs to skew things.) We've got Winter sports and Summer sports.

Bobsledding is easily the most expensive, a solid 50K for the sled alone, plus you're going to have to invest either money or a lot of time in designing that slope. Even if you have icy peaks everywhere you can't just jump in a sled and rocket off a mountain top. Gotta make sure the curves are smooth and don't shatter or empty into a ravine.

Everything else involves ski's at several hundred a pop or snowboards for much the same price. Sure you can get cheaper but that's like not paying to check out the bobsled slope, you're really going to skimp out on bits of plastic protecting your feet from 80mph rocks? Alongside that you'll need cases for the kit, gloves, goggles, thermal gear too, and if you're wanting to do more than just racing like ski jumping or freestyle, you're going to have to invest in setting up and maintaining ramps too. The cheapest would be skating, since ice skates are a) basically just modified shoes (so cheap production) and b) functional to a pretty big sport, but even then you're going to have to pay fairly heavily to maintain and use safe skating rinks. Sure there are plenty of frozen lakes around but how regularly are you going to risk using them? At what point is that pockmarked and cut up surface going to collapse and bury you in icy water?

Now Summer sports? Obviously equestrian is the most expensive, some horses go for literally millions and rowing sculls cost thousands, but absolutely no one doesn't see those as the trust-fund sports. Others cost a bit too, fencing kits can run in the hundreds to own your own (source; I used to fence and stopped because cost) and archery....oh no wait, turns out an olympic archery bow costs under a hundred. Beyond that? If you want to do a martial art you can pay to join a class, or just watch youtube videos and practice in your bedroom. Running? Just start walking faster, you don't even need shoes really. Boxing? Go find a tree and punch it. Weightlifting? Pick up the tree. Swimming? Go jump in a lake. Diving? Find a deep lake.

Obviously I'm being a tiny bit facetious here, you'd need to pay for good training maintenance to get good at boxing or martial arts and coaches always help you run better and faster, and a pool is always better than a lake to practice swimming in. But the point still stands, there isn't a single winter olympics sport you can do without investing considerable cost into solely the sport itself, but the vast majority of summer olympics you could do just by going outside as Sparta intended.

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Also even your own point doesn't invalidate OP. 'Less people living in the area with snow' doesn't stop it being a trust-fund activity, it just proves it is because you're pointing out the only people who can be athletes in it are the ones who can afford to regularly fly out and practice.