Originally Posted By: Pete
A long, long time ago - about the time that the Matterhorn was first scaled - there was a Baron in Europe. Don't ask me his name. He surmised that there were only THREE real sports ...

Car racing
Mountain climbing
and Bull Fighting

because in these sports a man (or woman) stood an appreciable chance of being killed.


I was kind of curious about the identity of this baron, so I tried to look up the quote. People attribute it to Hemingway, although there is considerable doubt that he actually ever said anything like it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120203013838/http://www.timelesshemingway.com/content/quotationsfaq

Quote:
In July of 2006, Gerald Roush, a visitor to Timeless Hemingway, provided a possible source for the "three sports" quotation. He cited a story titled "Blood Sport" by Ken Purdy, which originally appeared in the July 27, 1957 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. The story is reprinted in Ken Purdy's Book of Automobiles (1972). Gerald provided a scan of where the quotation appeared and it reads as follows: " 'There are three sports,' she remembered Helmut Ovden saying. 'Bullfighting, motor racing, mountain climbing. All the rest are recreations.' " Gerald noted that the character of Helmut Ovden is modelled after Ernest Hemingway. This could explain why the quote has been so widely attributed to Hemingway over the years.


Another search reveals the fictional character is Count Helmut Ovden -- so, yes, European nobility, although not a real one, but one from a writer's imagination.