So a teeny tiny microscopic poor country like Kosovo wins two gold medals in Olympics and we keep crying as apparently we have no money, no facilities and no coaching and so we cant even bring home a single bronze in three decades despite our God-gifted supreme talents!
We are happy playing tamasha Cricket, and we suck at it as well. Shame.
Nepotism, corruption leads to devastation of every faculty of society. We used to have an amazing hockey team and now we are absent from Olympics. Societies only engage in behaviours that are rewarded so we focus more on ghundagardi corruptions
Olympics has a different spirit, and I hope it stays that way. I remember watching gymnastics with awe as a child, never cared who won, who lost. All athletes participate, try their best and that is all.
[QUOTE]
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." - Pierre de Coubertin, IOC Founder
[/QUOTE]
Finally a thread on olympics. I was waiting for someone to pluck the cord.
I read that Pakistani olympic thing is run by some retired general appointed in 2004 who just keeps getting extensions and yet to take a single medal. Oh well
Population is not a factor in winning medals at Olympics! Only healthier and wealthier nations win medals at Olympics. **Both China and South Korea have proved my point by getting heathier and wealthier over the last 50 years. **Look at this record here
Olympic Medal Count | Tokyo 2020 Olympics (Jul 23-Aug 8, 2021)
Hardly any top 20 country is a poor in the list!!! The Gulf of Persian countries are wealthier too! But they are not healthier - eating a lot meat and rice every day and then sleeping and farting!
We were doing very good in hockey till early 1990s but then they introduced artificial turfs which changed the nature of the game completely from artistry to physical fitness. Then hockey players employment opportunities began fading as well (resulting from lack of wealth again as corruption made the govt departments un able to employ on sport basis) youngsters lost interest in the game as well. Now we rank 18 in the world.
India has started to finance its hockey over the last 8 years and as a result both of their men and women team reached semi final!
It also depends on what society rewards and values. Carribeans and Africans get running medals as when one person does it many will be motivated. One Moroccan years back did good in 500m and than many youths got motivated even in neigbouring Tunisia. Nepotism is a huge cancer and that has been the death knell for any excellence, from technology to education and sports. If your General Abbu can elavate you than why work hard. You are right about weaith as coaching, nutrition and technology play a big role. They are now saying Nike shoes is putting runners at an advantage. My boys had access to sports nutritionist, sports psychologists. Although Canada does not support athletes like many countries. Many Olympians are supported by families. Canada is doing really well.
Qatar actually does not give citizenships but it would give foreigners citizenship and pay them big bucks. I am not a big fan of this. Although I did look at Safy getting Qatari Nationality on sports but then he got busy with studies.
Wrong. India had same problem, but they changed with times and changed their game, and they are still one of the top teams. Problem is we get stuck in the past, and do not think about future. We keep making excuses. As far as money is concerned, millions are spent on Bureaucracy, ministerial cars, secretaries houses and overseas trips, directors of sports bodies, the PM house and travels, MP accommodations etc. All that money to benefit less than 0.1% of people, and the athletes only get empty promises, if they get lucky.
Not necessarily. Americans are one of the most unhealthiest nations for a long time but they still win big, each time, every time.
Syria won a medal, so did Ghana, Botswana and Namibia. All nations much poorer than Pakistan. Health and wealth is important, but not the only reason for our consistent poor performances. Nepotism, corruption, sheer laziness, different life priorities, obsession with a single sport and relative lack of wealth and healthy attitudes all contribute. But whatever, its an extremely shameful and depressing streak of poor performances. It probably hurts me more being a sports person myself.
Well corruption does play its role both directly and indirectly in sports development - directly as you mentioned and in directly as it keeps the masses poor and unhealthy vs few!
Here in the United Kingdom - they finance Olympic sports from their National Lottery! In 1989 when SAF games were held in Islamabad - that was also financed by "Saver Raffle". That year Pakistan had the best ever record of winning 48 gold medals! (2nd to India)
Both South Korea and present day Pakistan were 25 million in 1950! Now they are 51 million and we are a mob of 216 million unhealthy homosapians! South Korea finished 16th in the Olympics!
They have progressed in every field including sports - selling their brands such Samsung and LG all over the world!
Why do I always read your comments in Mark Webber’s voice?
Anyways, Well said. To this I would also like to add the fact that we do not have any infrastructure in place to help athletes excel in their field. I can only give examples from motorsports, because that’s all I know. But in the last 2 decades, there have been 2, albeit not very successful, Indian Formula 1 racing drivers. Karun Chandhok and Narain Karthikeyan, with the latter even hired by Williams as their number two. India has an FIA grade 1 compliant (top tier) track in New Delhi that they spent close to a billion dollars building, that has actually seen world drivers titles being won there (Sebastian Vettel, 2013.). Whereas, there hasn’t been a single Pakistani racing driver that has even made it to the junior formula’s, let alone F1. But I’m willing to bet, that within the next 15 years, we will see an Indian F1 driver compete for the world title and maybe even win it, in a top tier team like Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari or McLaren.
The problem is that we, as a nation, have zero patience and suck at playing the long game, unfortunately.
The only two Pakistani drivers I could think of are Adam Khan, and some Noor guy? neither were natives though, Khan was British Pakistani, and the other guy could have been American or Canadian, don’t remember much
Neither made it to the junior formulas (AFAIK). Adam Khan raced for this Dubai based weird single-seater series called A1GP (got nothing to do with formula racing), that lasted about 4 seasons before it folded. After which he was either a development or demonstration driver for Renault F1. He pretty much fell off the radar after that.
Nur Ali, never raced in a formula series. He did however race in NASCAR for one season with one of the back marker teams. After which he mostly did privateer events (his family must’ve been loaded to be able to afford that).
I stumbled upon this from Sydney Olympics 2000. It seems unfortunately even Olympics is not free of politics. There is already talk of boycotting Winter 2022 Olympics in Beijing due to the same mindset that loves to use the games for politics.
Congratulations to Kosovo!!