To be fair, that's a selective "quote"; the rest of the "sentence" includes many other sports:
My 2¢ worth on the fitness debate:
I'd place some individual (not team) sports at the top of the list. Distance runners are right up there but IMHO the fitness of the swimmers can't be beat. I'm not talking about the sprinters. The middle and long-distance swimmers are fit-as-Hell.
I can speak from experience and scientific verification and quantification of my own fitness but don't want to come across as bragging so I'll leave it there.
EDIT:
I'm talking 45 years ago of course.