Spain have strong grassroots level for many sports. Football academies sign prospects from an early age and also handle their school education. These same football clubs also run the basketball part. Tennis in Spain is very accessible to most quarters of the public, whereas in many countries the only way to get into tennis is to have your parents be members in some sports/country club or to be enrolled in a school with a tennis program. F1 is an anomaly when it comes to Alonso because his parents sacrificed a lot for his karting career (and Sainz Snr was rich enough to sponsor Sainz Jnr and to get him into the Red Bull program via contacts, so that doesn’t count), but for motorcycle racing Spain also has great local feeder series with lots of sponsorship, which explains the high percentage of Spanish riders in MotoGP. Also, Spanish parenting culture encourages sporting activites, which is probably the most important factor, as long as the kids don’t forget to take their afternoon siesta.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jul 16 2024, 04:33 PM