15 seasons - 5 winners who won 2 ICs or more, 10 winners who won 1 or 0 ICsThe numbers don't lie. It is harder to win this game when you are strong at challenges. It is twice as easy to win, by the numbers, if you are weak at challenges.
Survivor is more than just a physical game obviously. That said I think the numbers are skewed (as you have shown above) largely due to the fact that players fear the physical players more. That's why they are targeted earlier and earlier (os so it seems). With this in mind, you would think more of the physical players would wise up (certainly they watch Survivor) and would look to forge alliances with physical players early, instead of tacking on several weaker players at the end of their alliances. The weaker players are almost always going to bond together to take out the physical threats post-merge. With two idols in China, James was too foolish to see this and it cost him dearly. Who's fault was that?
This season more of the same is happening. First we have the battle of the alpha males on who would be the Big Chief of the Fans. Three weaker outsiders should have had no chance to remain in the game yet here they are. And Mikey and Joel are at loser lounge. Yes Tracy deserves some credit here, but these two meatheads allowed this to happen. No way Chet should still be here. And on the other side, the physically stronger alliance allowed Cirie to manipulate a vote, picking who she wanted to remove. Now Yau Man hardly qualifies as a physical threat, but he certainly wasn't the weakest player remaining. If I'm Ozzy or James right now I'm very concerned. You don't think Parvati and Amanda are smart enough to realize they have a better shot against the likes of Eliza, Cirie, Chet, Kathleen, Alexis, etc than Ozzy or James? James especially should see this! The next target should not be Eric or Jason, it should be Cirie (the biggest potential disruptor of their alliance) or Eliza. The weaker physical players obviously know who to target, so why don't the stronger players recognize this and target those weaker players most likely to make waves instead of letting them hang around until the numbers favor them? It goes both ways!