It comes down to whether you can make a living in India if you get into sports. The economics around it are strong enough to force out anyone considering sports. Cricket is the only sport in India that can get you top dollar whether you make it big or small. The compensation provided to a person playing hockey or table-tennis is meager in comparison.
Those that are talented and have the will + passion for the sport shine as long as they have enough funds. Then there are those [1] that have to sell their bow to make ends meet despite securing a silver medal at the south asian championships. It was heart breaking reading that.
They pointed out Korea tend to do well in per capita medal counts as Taekwondo is a popular sport there - and there are gold, silver and two bronze medals in four weight categories for two genders - a total of 32 medals available. On the other hand cricket, one of the most popular sports in India, has zero olympic medals.
That can only be a small part of the story. If you look at the current medal count, South Korea has 16 while India has just 2. But none of those 16 Korean medals are from taekwondo. There are 3 judo medals, but that is technically a Japanese sport, not Korean.
Korea was once a part of the Japanese empire and according to older members of the Korean community in São Paulo* the Japanese governor outlawed Korean martial arts and promoted Kendo and Judo at schools. Korean Kendo is known a Kumdo.
Koreans are also crazy about archery, shooting and badminton, sports in which they generally go well.
*I used to live in "Bom Retiro" neighborhood in São Paulo which is a center of the Korean community here, they said me that exactly.
Korea was only a Japanese colony for 35 years (1910-1945). After the Japanese occupation ended, the Koreans did their best to reject everything Japanese, so I don't think you can base your conclusion on that.
I don't deny that the Koreans do well in other sports, just that it's not like they have a cultural advantage or something. For example, their dominance in archery at the 2008 games was partially due to their building an exact replica of the Beijing archery range in Korea 2 years earlier and using it to practice. Many other competitors had never practiced on that archery range until they arrived at the Olympics, and it threw them off.
Don't know, a Korean friend said Kumdo is one of the most popular sports in Korea, he lived there for a couple of years, don't know about judo but I would not be surprised if it was that popular as well.
I'm not Korean and only said what members of the Brazilian-Korean community, in which I have a some friends, said to me.
Actually, I would argue that Chinese success in weightlifting is one of those caused by heavy government funding. The Chinese model of weightlifting development (starting talent super youge, putting them through special development schools, and picking out the best, and then training them even more / giving them state funding) is exactly the type of money heavy technique that India appears to not have.
There are some things in this article that are true and some false. And as an Indian I can tell you that are many things that people don't understand.
India is huge country. Huge, I mean so huge that it will be difficult to truly explain the diversity we have here. It will be easy for a German to explain what Germany is, Or French to explain what France is and so on. But it will be very difficult for an Indian to explain what India is in totality basically because there are thousands of cultures, ways of lives, languages, people of ethnic origin, color, language, religion and so on and so forth. In fact any form of classification that you can come up to we have diverse categories in that.
This is not true for China. Or Korea or Thailand. Because they are a single ethnic group. People who talk of deficiencies or things not being a part of Indian culture do not understand Indian culture.
In India you will see large metropolitan cities acting as hubs for employment, living and opportunities. Go to villages you see poverty you also see prosperity(Depending on where you go). You will see most advanced technologies to old stone age agriculture methods. At one end you will see farmers in the area of Punjab being the richest of the lot and you will also see farmers committing suicide due to debt and poverty.
You will see people eating stomach full to people barely affording a meal a day.
Amidst all this we have a thriving industry in every domain of business you can imagine. We have the best colleges and universities and we also have a huge problem of illiteracy.
We write software, we have a nuclear weapons program, despite being the worlds most peaceful nation we have one of the largest armies in the world. We have a space program. Yet at the same time we struggle to feed our self.
Our society still has the stains of socialism and communism from the old days. We still have massive corruption and inefficiency in government layers.
Amidst all this parents feels their kids are better off studying and getting good jobs to make a living than doing something like sports which don't offer much incentive to make a comfortable living. There are instances of gold medal winners pawn broking their medals to afford a day's meal.
Also there are not many facilities and training options if you want to be a serious athlete. At the same time we don't believe China kind of policies either.
While you provided an accurate description of the Indian culture, your comment does not address the issue at hand.
The biggest problem according to me lies in the Indian culture; We don't challenge authority enough to pursue our dreams.
In Indian culture most decisions that matter are made for children by their parents. Disobeying your parents has an associated stigma to it. While this being a good thing for holding the families together, and arguably increasing happiness, this can be a deterrent to developing a person's individuality and self confidence.
So while it is difficult for well wishing parents to suggest a high-risk, high-reward path for their children (it's not their dream after all), which involves the child following a sport which he/she is good at, the children's subservience hamper independent thinking required to pursue their dream on their own. IMHO this is the primary cause of the herd mentality that we see so very often in India.
This herd mentality causes a catch22, where prior successes are required in a sport for parent-approved children's participation, and due to lack of participation there aren't any successes.
Of course there are miracles, but unfortunately not very often. For example, I attribute a lot of the participation in cricket and as a result the top class Indian cricket team that we see today, to the miracle named 'Sachin Tendulkar'[1] - one of the best batsmen that the sports has ever seen.
But with the modernization(westernization?) of the Indian culture, things are looking better. Looking at India's history at the Olympics[2], recently we have started seeing successes across a variety of sports - shooting, boxing, and badminton. I hope this trend continues and helps convince more parents to let their children pursue their dreams and not be just another rat in the rat race. And also convince a lot more children that challenging the authority can sometimes be a good thing.
Erm, care to point out a few of the things in the article that are false? I could find none.
The article does not try to explain what India is, but why India doesn't win as many medals in the Olympics as are expected from a nation this big. And it's does a pretty decent job of that IMO.
"It has never won a medal at the winter games" is pretty misleading, given that India is largely a 'summer' country - in fact, it's pretty much just European countries, US and Canada that win medals at the winter Olympics. And while India's been to most of the summer Olympics, it's only been to 8 winters.
If you look at the medals won, it's clear that it's a very eurocentric competition. Apart from China (who go crazy for cold war reasons - the article disingenuously uses cold war countries for comparison), all the high performers are euro culture. Sure, Japan won 400 medals overall... but Germany has 1500... and even Finland has nearly as many summer medals as Japan.
Apart from China, who has invested heavily as a matter of pride, non-euro culture countries generally don't do well.
Jamaica has won zero winter Olympics medals. Same with Brazil, Greece, Iran, Israel, Mexico, the Phillipines, Portugal (I stopped looking around p - check the link above) - all sizeable 'summer' countries with zero winter Olympics medals.
You probably recall the film "Cool Runnings", in which the team did not win; the point was that they were plucky underdogs and did better than expected, but they didn't place.
> Amidst all this parents feels their kids are better off studying and getting good jobs to make a living than doing something like sports which don't offer much incentive to make a comfortable living.
Seems reasonable to me (but I went, studied, and got a good job instead of going to sports).
I disagree, the US just isn't that different. Yes, theres small pockets of intense difference, often composed of first and second generation immigrants, but otherwise "American" culture is fairly homogeneous thanks to mass media.
No real interest in sports unless it is cricket. There are pockets where there is a significant secondary interest in soccer (WB, Kerala come to mind) and hockey but other than that it is cricket, cricket, cricket.
Where money is allocated to sports the bureaucrats insert themselves into the pipeline. There was a story[1] where an olympic bound athlete [flag bearer] wanted to pay for his physio guy to come along. Of the 142 member team there are 61 non athletes. You would hope that 50 or so of them would be for the needs of the athletes (like physio, etc). Somehow I doubt that...
So the article has the right tone... very little infrastructure and no strategic effort in improving it.
When I lived in India, I certainly observed that no one there seemed to care about athletics. It's just not in the culture.
I'd regularly go jogging. People would stop and stare - doubly so if I stopped running and did pushups. In my entire time there, I saw perhaps 3-4 Indians running, and considerably more foreigners. The Pune running club was comprised primarily of people who spent time overseas and expats.
During a conversation with an auto driver, he told me that Indian's don't do "poses" (i.e., yoga) - "that stuff is just for tourists". (I gather there is some regional variation.)
So my guess that the reason India doesn't have a lot of medals is that people just don't care to compete for them.
IMHO, with a billion people, I believe that BOTH a) your generalization is true, i.e., the majority is disinterested AND b) not relevant w.r.t. Olympic medal-winning potential : it is enough for a small minority to be interested in sport / fitness & glory to make the cut for the olympics. I believe that the 80/20 rule applies, and is actually more of a 95/5 rule in most societies and most achievements : 5% of the population account for the glory (, the rest just wake the flag and feel proud, conveniently forgetting that one cannot be proud of what one did not achieve personally).
I suspect you might find a similar proportion of everday Chinese equally disinterested in "poses" (not sure, just speculation).
I believe that the core reason is our usual friend, corruption and red tape. It's not just sports; in general, the meritocratic lose out because wherever there is an opportunity in India, whatever be the form of opportunity. That includes what is rightfully yours, such as welfare handouts, your passport, etc; An Indian's everyday life consists of jumping through hoops to get basic things done.
There certainly is some 95/5 rule, or probably a 999/1 rule. But you need to apply the 999/1 rule to the people actually interested in going for the gold. I.e., in the US that might be 0.001 x 25% whereas in India it might be closer to 0.001 x 5%.
My issue with theories like corruption/red tape/etc is that India is not unique in this regard. India is pretty bad with corruption, but Jamaica is too. Yet Jamaica tends to perform pretty well - running is popular there. You can find plenty of corrupt and poor countries that outperform India, particularly if you adjust for population.
China is a special case since the government basically forces people to shoot for Olympic gold in marginal sports (e.g., discus, javelin) and trains them from early ages to do so. They also use eugenics to breed top athletes (Yao Ming is one famous result of this), and similar things.
> China is a special case since the government basically forces people to shoot for Olympic gold in marginal sports
This is a common misconception. No one is "forced" to participate in the Olympics in China. Poor parents send their children to Olympic trainers because if their children do well, they'll get to go to college for free and have a good, middle-class job.
I was working with many Indians a few years ago and they asked themselves the same question. One had an interesting take I've not heard elsewhere - he claimed that the large number of vegetarians in India results in poorer athletic potential - the lack of meat and protein leading to less strength, quickness, etc.
It was an interesting idea, but looking up some facts myself right now, that claim could be tested by Pakistan's medal count. Same general genetic background, same general infrastructure problems, but are not generally vegetarians. However, Pakistan hasn't won a medal in 20 years, and only a few medals ever.
Kenyans and Ethiopians tend to get even lower levels of protein in their diets and their Olympic athletes are pretty damned quick. As running sub 3 minute kilometers back to back for a whole marathon.
Their macro-nutrient is generally about 10%-15% fat, 10% protein and 75%-80% carbs, and mostly from plant sources.
Was Dave Scott a vegetarian his entire life, or simply converted to it when he was a fully-grown adult? Most likely the latter.
Protein consumption as a growing child and teenager is directly proportional to height - it's the sole reason the average white male has increased 6" over the past 200 years. Genetics haven't changed, just our diet.
Dave Scott was awesome for sure, but what matters here are the Olympic sports and each one requires certain characteristics. You won't see a weightlifter competing in canoe, 5000+ running/walking or shooting for example.
Anomalies aside, it would be interesting to observe correlations between a largely ( >51% ) non-vegetarian diet and athletic predisposition and performance.
Holding every other factor (race, geography, culture etc) constant, the exponentially greater protein availability (in meat consuming countries) cannot NOT have consequences for general muscular build among the populaces and as a consequence, some form of athletic predisposition.
A good question to start with:
Are there any predominantly vegetarian regions - besides large tracts of India - elsewhere in the world?
Provides per capita tracking of medals won. Currently New Zealand is in first place with 3 golds and 4 bronzes. India has 1 silver and 1 bronze putting them in 45th place.
Better, but per capita computation punishes larger countries because, in many sports, the number of competitors a country can send is independent of population.
For example, if China were to split in four, the four parts would almost certainly win more medals in table tennis than China does now.
Similarly, 'US West' would play 'US East' in the basketball final, but the USA will get at most one medal.
It doesn't really punish larger countries, because larger countries can send much, much broader teams. Try and find a sport that doesn't have the Chinese or Americans competing in it. Then do the same for small-but-not-tiny countries like New Zealand, Ireland or even Greece.
So, the USA has 62 times the population, but only about 8 times the number of competitors as Ireland. If it was a lottery, you would not expect them to win 62 times the number of medals.
So, yes, it does punish larger countries.
And, from that second link, 'HA' is the sport you asked for (I guess that is handball; makes sense as that is easter European/Scandinavian dominated; http://www.london2012.com/handball/ confirms that)
I must admit, I'm very surprised at the number of NZ participants.
I still don't think it's highly punished, simply because 'best of 300M' is likely to be better than 'best of 4M'. The US does have 2500 medals compared to NZ's 90 - while not 60 times as many, it's still two orders of magnitude, same as the population. Ireland and Greece are in the same 'order of magnitude' boat with 23 and 108 medals respectively.
The 'try and find' thing was more a rhetorical statement meaning 'not many' :)
Corruption and regional politics are major factors too. Suffice it to say sports is not very meritocratic in India. A person has to be exceptionally talented to jump through all the hoops. Quoting from http://www.indianexpress.com/news/corruption-in-sports-leads...Sunita Godara, a former marathon runner and Arjuna Award winner, said, “We decided to join Anna Hazare as we have been fighting against corruption at various levels in the sports bodies for the past 20 years. There is favouritism in the selection process and corruption at every level.”
This seems like a great opportunity for America - send some scouts to India to find poor young children that show athletic talent, tell their parents (or adopt them if they're orphans) that they can be American citizens if they let them go to America for athletic training. Give them American citizenship by the time they turn 16 (the age required for Olympic participation), and we'll be able to easily raise our Olympic medal count. It's a win-win situation - the US increases its medal count and the children get a vastly better life than their parents.
This seems like a good idea but there are a couple of issues though:
1. I believe from anecdotal evidence most young children start serious preparation so that by their teens, they would have to have a significant portion of their technique mastered so that talent can start playing a significant role. However, I am not sure how easy it is identify the kids pre-teenage.
2. Investment costs: Importing a group of people just for the sole purpose of racking up medals (non withstanding the inherent creepiness of it) will be tremendously expensive. How do you justify the expense if the children don't want to do it eventually?
> However, I am not sure how easy it is identify the kids pre-teenage.
I'm not sure how the Chinese do it, but this is exactly their approach. Children with talent (or at least some signs of it) are taken at a very young age (~5 y/o) and intensively trained.
> Importing a group of people just for the sole purpose of racking up medals (non withstanding the inherent creepiness of it) will be tremendously expensive. How do you justify the expense if the children don't want to do it eventually?
Will it be expensive? I made this suggestion based on the assumption that, as with the IT industry, it's more cost efficient to bring in workers from abroad than to depend on domestic talent. In any case, from what I can tell, the main costs come from buying equipment and hiring coaches, not from the children. All you have to do is pay for their food, shelter, schooling, and other basic needs.
The children of course will not be forced to remain in the program if they do not want to. Contrary to popular belief, this is the system used by China - no one is kidnapped or coerced into participating, although that no doubt happens in North Korea.
In any case, the US policy would be that at any point, they can quit and go back home, if they so desire. Citizenship would be reserved for those who stick with the program until they are of Olympic age (of course, there would be weeding out as well, so the numbers would be relatively low). And even if they end up going back at the age of 10, they would have greatly benefited from just getting nutritious food during a crucial part of their childhood - child malnutrition rates in India are almost 50%, even higher than those in sub-Saharan Africa. Childhood malnutrition leads to lifelong physical and mental infirmity, so the children would no doubt benefit.
There's no denying the creepiness to some people, although I don't see it that way (America is a nation of immigrants who came for a better life, and that would describe these kids perfectly). This would be a cost-efficient and humane way to reassert US Olympic dominance over China, something that a lot of people are concerned with.
Sending a scouting network into a foreign country that largely doesn't speak your language in order to watch a broad swathe of children isn't going to be cheap.
Given that the US already leads the board in total medal tally, do they really need to game the system that way? Besides, it makes an even further mockery of the idea of 'amateur athletes' when you're essentially buying them from the other side of the world.
Citizenship would be reserved for those who stick with the program until they are of Olympic age (of course, there would be weeding out as well, so the numbers would be relatively low).
Lure a family to an entirely different culture with promises of wealth and wellbeing, then if they aren't gloriously successful for whatever reason, throw them away like trash, back into a culture they're now not used to, particularly the kids? All so you can increment your medal tally to stem the 'yellow peril'? This is morally reprehensible.
> Sending a scouting network into a foreign country that largely doesn't speak your language in order to watch a broad swathe of children isn't going to be cheap.
Translators come cheap in a country where English is relatively well spoken.
> Given that the US already leads the board in total medal tally, do they really need to game the system that way?
How long do you think that's going to last? China is going to beat us in both total medal count and the number of gold medals within 2 or 3 Olympics (if not this one), and then we'll have no hope at all.
> Besides, it makes an even further mockery of the idea of 'amateur athletes' when you're essentially buying them from the other side of the world.
Hey, fight fire with fire. What do you think the Chinese are doing? It's not like these children are going to be mistreated. And I don't think giving them proper food, shelter, education, and clothing can be equated with "buying" them.
> Lure a family to an entirely different culture with promises of wealth and wellbeing, then if they aren't gloriously successful for whatever reason, throw them away like trash, back into a culture they're now not used to, particularly the kids? All so you can increment your medal tally to stem the 'yellow peril'? This is morally reprehensible.
OK, so set up some training centers in India instead. If they make it to the age of 10 or so without being weeded out, bring them to America. Anyone who comes to America and stays for at least 6 months can be guaranteed citizenship, even if they don't win. How does that sound? These are just details. My post was intended to lay out a general plan, not to invite nitpicking over the details of every word.
And the "yellow peril" you talk about (racial connotations notwithstanding) is a very real thing. China is going to dominate the world very soon. The best way we can fight back is to rely on America's basics, one of which is immigration.
Translators come cheap in a country where English is relatively well spoken.
This one point is supposed to suggest that the rest of the comment would also be cheap? However you carve it, it will be quite expensive, once you throw in trained scouts, administration for scouts and moved families, foreign bureaucracy, domestic bureaucracy...
China is going to beat us
So? The spirit of the games is supposed to be participation, not grinding other people's face in how awesome you are. Be the bigger person and say 'congratulations'.
It's not like these children are going to be mistreated.
Tossing them away like trash into a now-foreign culture because they don't run fast enough for you is pretty heavy mistreatment.
The best way we can fight back is to rely on America's basics, one of which is immigration.
"We'll let you in if you do our work for us" does indeed seem to be the modern US opinion on immigration, yes. Or you can fight back by not spending shitloads of money to chase shiny baubles.
But in the end, so what if the Chinese game the system by heavy investment? Everyone knows they do it. When they take and keep the #1 spot, no-one is thinking that they're simply superior physical specimens - that's old cold war thinking at play. All you do by purchasing athletes from other countries is dirty your own hands and making people think the same of you. Worse, even - 'the US had to import its talent to stay ahead of China's native talent'.
> This one point is supposed to suggest that the rest of the comment would also be cheap? However you carve it, it will be quite expensive, once you throw in trained scouts, administration for scouts and moved families, foreign bureaucracy, domestic bureaucracy...
I'm not denying that there will be expenses. Obviously, some detailed calculations would have to be done and a cost-benefit analysis performed. However, my intuition tells me that it will be worth it when China starts to dominate. Moreover, the cost of living is low in India, so it would be a lot cheaper than training athletes in the US.
> So? The spirit of the games is supposed to be participation, not grinding other people's face in how awesome you are. Be the bigger person and say 'congratulations'.
Oh please, those are just empty words you tell kids. No one really believes that, least of all the American or Chinese teams.
> Tossing them away like trash into a now-foreign culture because they don't run fast enough for you is pretty heavy mistreatment.
First of all, I already gave you a solution to that problem. And no matter how you look at it, these are children that would otherwise end up physically and mentally deformed, and often illiterate. Any cultural issues pale in comparison to those very real problems.
> "We'll let you in if you do our work for us" does indeed seem to be the modern US opinion on immigration, yes.
And there's nothing wrong with doing that. One of the reasons that the US doesn't have the demographic timebomb faced by the rest of the developed world is that we encourage large-scale immigration
> Or you can fight back by not spending shitloads of money to chase shiny baubles.
That would be entirely antithetical to the spirit of the modern Olympics, so that's a non sequitur.
> But in the end, so what if the Chinese game the system by heavy investment?
Regardless of their methods, they will be lauded. It would be remiss of us not to do everything legal and ethical in our power to fight back.
> All you do by purchasing athletes from other countries is dirty your own hands and making people think the same of you.
Once again, we wouldn't be "purchasing" them. They wouldn't be slaves or indentured servants. I don't understand how this would be a bad thing. These children would be given a chance at a vastly better life. It's not like they would be deprived of something because of our actions.
> Worse, even - 'the US had to import its talent to stay ahead of China's native talent'.
Except that is what the US is all about - we are a nation of immigrants. While the rest of world might scoff at our short history and lack of ethnic homogeneity, we take great pride in that fact.
No, you really need to stop restorting to ad hominem responses and face the cold, hard truth. It is a fact that nearly 50% of children in India suffer from malnutrition. It is a fact that malnutrition is a condition that is universally accepted within the scientific community to cause lifelong physical and mental deformity. This has nothing to do with race. It could happen in any country, to any ethnicity.
Taking umbrage at your statement that all Indians are mentally and physically deformed is not an 'ad hominem' response. Seriously, think about the extension of what you said - it would mean that every Indian national is physically or mentally deformed. You've pegged it back to 50% with this comment, but even then, is your mythical scouting network really going to be looking at malnourished children?
Then you compound it by wanting to be given a pat on the back because you're willing to save a mere handful if they happen to perform well. It's like saying that blacks in the US don't have to worry about poverty so much because there's the NFL to save some of them.
Also, "It is a fact that -foo- is universally accepted within the scientific community" is an 'appeal to authority' fallacy. Besides, malnutrition comes in a range of degrees - it is not synonymous with kwashiorkor or marasmus, not among the scientists you claim as your authority. Hence, it also refers to the diet of obese Americans (and there's also mild undernutrition as well). Given that the obesity rate in the US is climbing towards 30%, it's not so much of a gain to go from a culture with 50% to a 30% malnutrition rate.
I am still not sure that one needs to go all the way to India to do all of this. Couldn't the "Chinese miracle" be replicated here here in America with any demographic that has low participation ratios in the Olympics due to reasons other than interest?
1. India has a much larger population. You have a higher chance of getting someone with the right phenotype for the sport if you have a much larger group of people to pick from.
2. There's more incentive for the children to stay in the sport if they're given something significant in return - there are tons of children in India who would do anything for what we take for granted (food, shelter, clothing, education, American citizenship, etc.).
While the article is true, it misses the point that the games and sports that India does excel in, do not feature in the Olympics. Cricket, kabadi, kho kho, chess etc.
I am really surprised that GB did not make an effort to have T20 Cricket in Olympics, as that format is much more amenable to Olympics and arguably, more popular with today's spectators.
Another point that is missed is the Indian diet. A large portion of the population is vegetarian ( and not all kinds of meat are eaten ). And Indians are foodies that like to eat spicy, oily food etc.
> Another point that is missed is the Indian diet. A large portion of the population is vegetarian ( and not all kinds of meat are eaten ).
Could you clarify further what proportion of the population is vegetarian? Surely, there are high protein vegetarian diets (say something concentrated in Whey) that athletes could do?
> And Indians are foodies that like to eat spicy, oily food etc.
Not sure how this is relevant. Assuming that there is a inherent cultural bias towards spicy food, it is not that difficult for a competitive athlete to go on a stricter regime while working towards victory.
I would attribute this to the following:
1. As a society, and culturally India historically has not given sufficient importance to physical fitness. So while historically there was great importance given to spiritual and philosophical pursuits(they had universities setup more then thousand years back dedicated to philosophy - Nalanda), the physical/bodily aspect was not only overlooked but considered almost an overhead/obstacle to ultimate goal in life. Even Yoga's birth(in India) was related more to spiritual pursuit. Not surprising to see origins of Chess in India(even though Chess is a sport, but it is mental). And India does reasonably good in Chess even now.
2. Even the food habits, historically, in India are geared more towards supporting this bent towards mental/spiritual aspects than physical. Hence prevalence of vegetrianism. Now vegetarianism can be one of the healthiest lifestyle(there has been known triathletes who are pure vegetarians)...but that requires a well balanced diet - which is not the case for majority in India(for most in India, vegetarian diet has lot of grease and less nutrition).
3. There is a reason why Cricket is the most popular sport in
India - it does not require great physical fitness yet you can play it for hours. And cricket does grab a lion share of sporting opportunities in India (and most lucrative).
3. Prevalent thinking still is that sports is waste of time, and you are better of spending that time on studies...hence you will see abundance of Indian American spelling bee champs even here in US, yet you will not see many in athletics
4. Combine that with lack of creativity and focus from Government in India in identifying(and persisting) with a sport which can fetch medals (like Turkey etc)
Every Olympic medal winner is an expert at his/her sport. Given that attaining expertise requires about 10 years of "deliberate practice" under the supervision of a capable coach, the deficiencies in India's sports management come under focus:
1. The lack of native coaches is evident from the need to depend on foreign coaches. This leads to obvious challenges for an aspiring sportsperson. For instance, many potential sports persons may just not be talent-spotted.
2. The incentives to pursue a career in sports are weak: The middle classes - who can think of funding their child's sports ambition - usually give in to the fear of being excluded from a "regular" career, usually based on education qualification.
Brazil and Mexico suffer from the same problem, they are middle income countries with more than a 100 million people and yet they are not much better than Kenya, and although not a country with much people Israelis are richer than the majority of the world they do not go well in the Olympics either, so money just do not buy a good Olympics performance like the article tried to sell.
One thing that can explain is culture, Australia has a culture for competition, for example Australian lifeguards compete in the Surf Life Saving competition in aquatic sports, it's not a coincidence that Australia goes well in aquatic sports in the Olympics, Swimming, Rowing and Sailing are responsible for half their gold medals.
India is a big country with a huge population. As with many other complex phenomena, there is no one reason which can explain why India is not doing well in sports. My guess is that the country is just going through a trough. Wait for a few more generations and see.
In general, as economic forces level the playing field for most countries around the world, the medals tally will start correlating well with the population.
"Sport was never a priority for a majority of [Indian] parents and their kids," this line says it all. India doesn't have a culture that encourages sports. In a typical middle class family, the parents are actively involved in education of their kids but when it comes to sports they will draw some ground rules like 4 to 6 pm for playing, then studies and no play time during exams and that's about it.
India is an impoverished nation. More than 55% of people are severely malnourished. To top it, the militant brahmanic Hindutva of North India advocates vegetarianism - which equates to further lack of proteins. And the caste system that looks down upon manual labor and subsequent sedentary lifestyle for last 3000 years have made Indians a weak race. To top it corruption and lack of self drive.
What India can do is persuade IOC to include cricket as an event (but still with counterparts such as Australia, South Africa & Sri Lanka their chances could be thin).
There is still this belief that Cricket matches run for days. There is an newer format called t20 , which lasts only 3hours. Many tennis games take more time than that!
Guns are not banned in India. It just takes more effort to get guns. You need a license to own a firearm. One of the high courts declared that unless there is something adverse against the candidate one cannot be denied license. This effectively makes it a right to own a firearm.
Form a special branch of military service for athletes, form a special federal police squad for the best marksmen, issue special exemptions at the discretion of the president, or train overseas. All those methods have been used.
Most countries with strict gun control nonetheless have a way you can get access to rifles for sport-shooting at licensed facilities. One of the two Indian shooting-sport medallists is also in the army.
Despite the in-vogue arguments that come with sparse evidence to support that a vegetarian diet can indeed match the athletic predisposition and performance of a non-vegetarian one, I find it highly suspect that regions of the world ( including India ) which have had to rely exclusively on plant protein for hundreds of generations would yield the same athleticism predisposition rates as regions that haven't had such a constraint.
Consistently high preponderance in vegetarianism (in India) has to share some of the blame for a lack luster interest in athleticism and athletic activities.
There is simply no other very large land mass that has a cultural history of very high (and almost exclusive) dependence on plant protein.
This does not even begin to tell the tale of the deleterious effects of a diet entirely devoid of testosterone-laden red meat.
I also think it is a healthy sign that Indian democracy is working well in at least some respects. Their great rival China is apparently kidnapping some children who show signs of athletic potential and subjecting them to a life of intense training for a chance at an Olympic medal to promote the greatness of the mother country. India clearly hasn't chosen this route despite the pressure there must be to match China in all fields.
I smell jealousy here. Although it's a fact that China spent a great sum of money and effort training their athletes and the children usually go though excess training(well, like Russia, Korea etc) , i don't think the athletes are being "kidnapped" or forced to become athletes. Many of the young athletes came from very poor family and this is a way to improve their lives (including their families and even the whole village). In fact, it's a privilege to be chosen.
"Chinese 16-year-old Ye Shiwen astounded everyone with her finishing kick in the 400 IM. London's Daily Mail newspaper sent a reporter to Ye's hometown to interview her parents.
They told of their only child being selected at age 6 to be schooled in an elite full-time swim program. At 11 she turned "pro" and entered what was basically a work camp for kiddie phenoms, one of 20 selected from a pool of 20,000 candidates.
Between ages 11 to 14, Ye was allowed one brief visit with her parents each week and one brief phone call home, many of them very tearful.
The parents talked of missing their daughter terribly, but Ye's mom said, "In the West, you pay a coach to turn you into an athlete. But in China, the state pays, so you have to sacrifice something in return.""
Right. This is all true. I'm not supporting their system. But the parents are not forced. They have a choice. They choose to sacrifice something in return for a good economic life and future for themselves and their children. There are tens of millions of chinese workers who left their village or town to work at big cities. Many of them only see their children once or less per year. In comparison, the chosen athletes life is so much better. Sure, china should definitely improve their system but I don't think it's fair to demonize them when it's simply not true.
If you are very poor and the party offers your kids education, food and a career. I doubt if any parent wouldn't let go their kids.
Its basically like putting up your kid for adoption. People do that when they have no way out. If they had absolutely any other option, trust me they would keep their kids with them.
Well, they don't have another choice, and so this is a good option. It's better than what happens in India, with almost half the child population suffering from malnutrition - it's even worse in India than in sub-Saharan Africa, which is saying something.
Nowhere in the article does it say that the child was kidnapped or otherwise taken from her parents without consent. At best you can infer that the parents are being shut up by the government, but then that means you've already decided what the truth is.
EDIT: Basically what you see theorique implying below.
Should also point that the overall "Chinese Miracle" was partly fueled by vast migrations of poorer workers from inland areas to the coast to work. They typically have to leave their children/family in their villages, and get to see them once a year at Chinese New Year. This in no way makes the Chinese athletic development system 'right', and I don't mean to trivialize the family's blight, but I think it's important to have -some- context.
Are you kidding me? It's an article about China in it's darkest years. They definitely have done worse things like staving millions of lives due to poor governance. I am talking about the new China. The 21 century China. And the generations of athletes born after 1980s or 1990s (which are the majority of the current chinese athletes). If you're talking about the old generation living under communist rule, sure, there were worse things than kidnapping.
The Party is still in charge. What is there not to get with this argument? It is also debatable that China has had its darkest years. One could argue that with the Party now having access to technology only dreamt of by totalitarian regimes 30 years ago, the darkest years are now.
Being neither Indian, nor Chinese, jealously doesn't come into it.
Children are being kidnapped. Believe me, if the local Party official came to a house in the West and said 'we're taking your child to athletic school, aren't you happy!' it would be considered kidnap.
They are certainly kicking a lot of countries ass in terms of winning gold metals. When chinese didn't have the will or money to train their athletes, the West called them "sick man of Asia". Now they are kicking ass, then they are being accused of kidnapping children. I agree that their system needs to be improved. But I think it's pretty ignorant and inaccurate to accuse them of kidnapping. The children only need to underperform for a short while if they are unwilling and they will soon be sent back to their families. (Which is a real probelm: the athletes at the top earn all the fame and money, and thousands of others just wasted their lives training and getting nothing). But saying that they kidnap is ridiculous.
"Please. It's so ugly to call this kidnapping. It's an enormous privilege to have your child participate in national athletics. Don't you want that opportunity for her? There are families who would kill for this chance.
Think of the great shame you would bring on your family and your entire village to know that your family rejected the opportunity to have your child participate in national athletics. Also, you have a nice house and a nice family here and it would be a real shame if some kind of terrible accident happened to them.
Ah, you've changed your mind about your youngest daughter participating. Excellent. She will bring honor and glory upon our great nation."
Indian democracy is anything but working well. Until the IOC forced the IOA (Indian Olympic Association) to fire him, the IOA's president was doing his job while imprisoned for embezzling an enormous amount of money during the construction process for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, held in New Delhi. Now that Kalmadi has been released due to "insufficient evidence", he's been reappointed as the president of the IOA.
India might be a democracy in name, but rule of law is very poorly enforced.
Irrespective of whether your story about China is true or not, this is not an indicative of healthy democracy. If anything, its an indicative of unhealthy governance.
I would have thought India aping China in the appropriation of youngsters to boost their medal count at the Olympics would be indicative of an unhealthy democracy, but whatever.
Those that are talented and have the will + passion for the sport shine as long as they have enough funds. Then there are those [1] that have to sell their bow to make ends meet despite securing a silver medal at the south asian championships. It was heart breaking reading that.
[1] - http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/article3278...