Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Entertainment Cricket and Other Sports
21

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

uncle jee..india kee bhot hee badnami hoie ha because of power breakdown....WSJ, Nytimes all major US newspapers published articles questioning india'a ability to handle 21 century challenges when its infrastructure is in such a bad shape..hard to understand why can't india spend some of its reserves in improving its infrastructure...i think inida has close to $300B US foreign exchange reserves....spend some of it so that india does not become a laughing stock among big boys club

22

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

I agree 100%!

23

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

:D

24

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

1.There is a huge bureaucracy and corruption in the sports associations. Extremely talented people are not able to get into national teams because of favoritism.
2. Unlike western countries, parents and community have huge influence in a person's career. I remember in childhood when folks used to ask me - "What are going to grow up-to and give the choices - Engineer, Lawyer or Doctor"
3. Due to lack of economic safety nets, lot of young people are forced to chose safe careers over interests and talents.
3. Not much sports facilities in schools, although now it is improving.
4. Too much focus on cricket. In India cricket is a religion. To put things in perspective, Indian Premier League (similar to English Premier leagues) is a money minting machine. Players from all over the cricketing world are flocking to play in IPL teams.
IPL started only 4 years ago but the teams are worth more than the EPL teams now

25

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Thanks to those who pointed out couple of errors
1) correct spelling Bhurisravas
2) Satyaki was known for archery not swordsmanship
3) Bhima also doubled up as a wrestler. His guru Balarama definitely deserves mention
4) there were several omissions such as Jarasandha in wrestling Krishna in decathlon - he excelled in several sports - lifted a mqiuntain by himself) Kumbhakarna from neighboring Sri Lanka for weight lifting and wrestling.

Just wanted to clarify - this list was just an example and by no means is exhaustive.

26

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

India hasn't won any gold medals yet, but its one silver and two bronzes represent just one medal of any type for every 400 million countrymen.

27

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Lack of facilities cant be the only excuse because countries like Ethiopia are winning gold medals. What kind of facilities do they have that produce athletes that produce medals?

It has more to do with a lack of sporting culture (apart from cricket) in both India and Pakistan

28

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Kenya and ethiopia push each other in marathons, just like India and Pakistan do to each other in cricket. And like cricket, marathon running is big in both the countries just like cricket is in desi countries, so most of their medals is in long distance running.

Moreover these people are built for running. I think it has do with being a part of those tall, lean african tribes
that are shown running with tall spears on National Geographic and Discovery.

29

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

I think that the money being made from IPL a proportion of it should be donated to other sport organisations so they can have better facilities and produce better athletes.

30

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

its not money really. its culture like someone said before. even good schools don't have a half-decent sports program, parents dont demand one, teachers look down up on those who spend time on sports. the physical training time periods in most schools gets spent on dumass cricket, which belongs in another era.

most olympians are good at some sport even before they are 10. they may switch sports later, but the idea of competing, coordination etc gets instilled early. you skip that stage, you miss a generation.

31

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Neither the Will nor the Cash: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals - Max Fisher - The Atlantic

For India, the best news may be that these Olympics are almost over | Nation / World News - The News Tribune

India’s Olympic Effort Faulted : NPR

32

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

I can imagine Indian and Pakistani athletes singing this song after the London Olympics is over

33

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

An article on china’s success in the Olympics
Where winning is everything - Indian Express

*Some insightful points from the article

  • 15,000 government-funded sporting schools in the country.

  • Children with athletic talent and potential are identified at an early age and sent to these boarding schools to be trained into future Olympians. Ye Shiwen, the 16-year-old swimming prodigy at the London games, was picked when she was six and has spent a decade in the Chinese athletic training programme.

  • Total government spending on this elite sports programme is secret.

  • As per official estimates, one might say that each medal cost almost $50 million.

  • China has also been very strategic in picking its targets. Because the physical build of Asians differs greatly from the Caucasians and Africans, China does not waste its money on track and field, where it has little hope of muscling out the Europeans and Americans. Instead, Beijing focuses on more obscure sports that require years of painstaking training, shunned by athletes in wealthier societies, such as weightlifting. The most ingenious component of China’s Olympics-winning strategy is to give more attention to its female athletes

  • In addition, by devoting disproportionate financial resources to a select few, China has neglected the majority of its youth. While its elite athletes train in world-class facilities, most Chinese schools have little space for sports. Based on sports facility available per person, China ranks below 100 in the world, a far cry from its current number one position in the medals tally at the London Olympics.

  • Another cost of this programme is that athletic triumph hides calamitous failures of public policy. While Chinese athletes break world records in international competitions, new — and worrying — records are being created at home. The Chinese are becoming much less healthy: roughly 85 per cent of its high-school students are near-sighted, diabetes has become an epidemic, over 200 million are overweight or obese, and 160 million suffer from high blood pressure.

34

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Just to re emphasize, the chinese have sporting schools, not the infrastructure poor, attitude deficient kind of schools all the desis have been talking about in this thread. I bet the extracurricular activity in these schools is an hour of reading chinese alphabets.

35

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Restored attachments:

255244_484040194959401_1333513673_n.jpg
255244_484040194959401_1333513673_n.jpg800×600 70.1 KB

36

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Hear, hear! At the very least, the govt can refrain from giving monetary rewards as it did after last world cup. Not as if other sports are swimming in money, for Phelps' sake!

37

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

And them Indians - specifically the book-ends - are easier on the eye to boot!

38

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

**The short answer is investment and infrastructure.
**
What a lot of the government dimwits in both countries don’t realise is that sport unifies and galvanises a people. It gives a country something to rally behind. Sport breaks boundaries between people within a country and makes them proud.

It seems that there are three ways to compete at Olympic level

1. The British way: i.e. pouring bucket-loads of money into it’s competitors to enhance the performance. Britain has spent around £10 billion on staging the London Olympics incl. preparation and security. They have been training hard for this event for 7 years. 16 years ago in the Atlanta Olympics, Britain won just 1 gold, so 29 gold medals (65 medals overall) represents a significant improvement by them at these events.

2. The Chinese way: Government-funded special sports schools (hhunaeh’s link above)

We are not just talking about infrastructure or including sports in school curriculums here but special sports schools. Scouting for talent and cradle-snatching the best-performing younsters away to a boot camp.

3. The Australian way: where sport is culture and a high degree of emphasis is placed on sport in schools.

Australia could have probably done better in London but 35 medals (7 of them gold) is not exactly a failure for a country 1/3rd the population size of Britain.

Even so Australian Olympic boss wants even greater emphasis on sport in school curriculums
Coates calls for more sport in schools | News.com.au

Australia are good not just in Olympic sports but other sports as well. They have been world champions in cricket and rugby. have done well in golf, squash (Geoff Hunt, David Palmer) and Tennis (Rod laver, Roy Emerson, Pat Cash) and are world champions in hockey. The only major sport where they have some catching up to do is football.

I prefer the Australian model whereby sports is regarded as an essential part of your life and education

Pakistan needs to be very professional about it if they are serious about winning some medals at the next Olympics in Rio. We should set up an olympic training center in Islamabad or one of the other major cities in the country. We should then hire foreign coaches to train athletes in the age group of 15 or so. But all this requires vision, planning & commitment and ofcourse money. I don’t see it happening till someone like Imran Khan becomes a sports or prime minister.

39

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

At least we have won few. 6 is not bad :)

40

Re: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals?

Why there is no discussion on Pakistan's performance?