Hey, don't knock skeleton as a minority sport, there are after all only 18 cars on an F1 track, while there are far more countries, let alone competitors, who put a team forward to compete at the highest levels.
As far as I know there is only one karter who has competed both in skeleton bob (to Team GB level) and in karting, Serita Shone.
After one ice crash she was covered in bruises from ankle to shoulder, far more than the outcome of most modern F1 incidents, while in another, in 2-man bob, she suffered a broken back,( the spine separated by 15 mm) and three days later the doctors had her up and walking.
A level of fitness, commitment and courage at least equal to an F1 driver.
The popularity of Motorsport over Skeleton Bob owes nothing to skill, interest, competence, fitness or courage, it is entirely down to the amount of money thrown at the media coverage. (Just as karting gets very little attention but is at least as interesting as F1, while watching a cake bake gets almost as big an audience as F1 if you count all the baking genre programmes in the world.
The real advantage Hamilton had was being 'recent' rather than 'memorable'.
Of course, we aren't really slagging Hamilton off, we are just recognising that the cult of celebrity has rendered all these 'celebrities' as lightweight. The real 'Sports Personality' might be the nurse who caught Ebola, was cured and then volunteered to go back; their sport is jogging but at least they have 'personality'.
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