Few weeks ago I was thinking the same why doesn’t my country produce Olympic medallists like our neighbour China or USA or anyone else. The answer is a little complex and multifaceted. Growing up pursuing sports came with privilege for many (expensive equipments or even being exposed to a sport) and it needed significant amount of dedication that meant giving 100% attention to academics was not possible. Lots of parents would want their kids to become doctors or engineers hence they would force them to focus only on studies.Our education system emphasised heavily on studies.Although we did have Physical Education class or “games” class where we were allowed to participate in sports.We even had sports day where kids would gather and compete against each other.However these are not enough.
If somehow a kid was supported by his parents to pursue any kind of sports I think the infrastructure and other technicalities that came with pursuing a sports professionally weighed them down (mainly due to financial constraints) and inadequate support from government or anyone for these families.This is the case with most of our athletes.
However things are getting better now.Thanks to our players in Olympics or any other competition.They inspire each kid in my country.
In short no matter the colour of the medal or the result of the match.Their participation and representation is doing a very good job in inspiring others and hopefully we will do better.
I’m sure there’s more to it and it’s beyond my scope to explain it to anyone.Someone who has played sports on national/international levels may be able to explain it better and add more to it.
Look at Ukraine, their country is being invaded but their athletes still managed to win 3 gold, 5 silver, and 4 bronze medals. The crazy part is they had lost 487 athletes because of war with Russia: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1edswh0/russia_has_killed_at_least_487_ukrainian_athletes/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1edswh0/russia_has_killed_at_least_487_ukrainian_athletes/)
It pissed me off that India buy oil from Russia during war and sanctions, even modi went to Russia and met with Putin last month. What a piece of shit. I’m not hating India people I just hate your government. I love India movies btw.
Because no cricket.
I haven’t read the article yet, but my guess would be a combination of economic and cultural factors- a lot of people in India are really, really poor, and therefore do not have the resources to train for the Olympics. I don’t think their government sees creating more Olympic level athletes as a worthy goal. Also, culturally, I think a lot of families would have a hard time getting behind the gamble of training for the Olympics over the idea of going to college.
Thanks to Maths teachers who always showed up on time and snatch the PE/PT class hour for math lessons. Also whoever thought Yoga is as good as other physically demanding track and field sports.
Are familiar with meme, where indian parents forces their children to become doctor and engineer and get disappointed when their child gets A instead of A+. Well, thats real.
Money. My country is also reconsidering the system and wants to pour more money into it. I’m not sure it’s all it takes, but it’s a good start. And it’s not just the money from the state. Many sports require expensive equipment. I can’t imagine a kid from a poor family getting into horseriding or golf or many others that have representation in the Olympics.
Have they tried turning it off and then on again?
Sport is a middle class endeavour in India. Even for cricket the theory was always that if India ever got their act together that the international game would be unsalvageable in terms of competition. They are favourites for most tournaments and tests but they don’t actually win tournaments that often. You won’t find anyone in those Indian cricket teams that grew up with nothing.
They are completely unwilling to develop the game with “lower caste” people. Then replicate it with the other sports, it’s probably even more extreme because you would really have to go out of your way to find non cricket or Hockey sports.
So yes, there are over a billion of them but very few have access to sport. And a lot of that is due to their culture of discrimination against poorer people. It ain’t changing.
If Chess was an Olympic sport surely India would dominate like China does with diving.
Indians are not interested in any sport but cricket.
I misread it as “most popular country” first and had a good laugh.
I’ve read a few biographies of olympic medalists. Sure the country infrastructure and nutrition/training makes a difference, but these people are Mentality monsters. There are plenty of Indian sportsmen with these traits (I would guess), so it’s not a country or cultural issue. I think there is no exposure to elite athletes in many Olympic categories in countries like India (perhaps). Role models make a huge difference. Katie Ledecky met Michael Phelps at her local swim club when she was 8 or 9. There are three Olympic track medalists at my local university right now. Cannot underestimate the impact that has.. Maybe changes are underway in India but it takes 2-3 decades for grassroots efforts to show results. If anything countries need to have a long term vision and be patient with their investments.
When a child has to work from age 4… Not enough time for leasure activities.
Different priorities/cultural preferences would be my guess. India consistently produces some of the greatest GMs in chess, and many spectate the major tournaments with great interest. By contrast, I assume they do not exhibit the same passion or make similar investment for Olympics sports.
Majority of Indians would spend money on education rather than on sports. Even Indian origin kids are not part of olympics representing US, UK or other countries.
Because they’re too busy raping and murdering women. Like what happened recently in the Kolkata Hospital.
Most per capita Golds at Olympics 2024
1. Dominica (per 70 K)
1. St. Lucia (per 180 K)
3. New Zealand (per 540 K)
4. Bahrain (per 850 K)
5. Slovenia (per 1.06 M)
6. Netherlands (per 1.20 M)
7. Georgia (per 1.28 M)
8. Ireland (per 1.32 M)
9. Australia (per 1.52 M)
10. Hungary (per 1.60 M)
Wow, all of the most upvoted comments talk only about the stereotypes without talking about the complexity of the country or its history.
Parents never send kids out to train because they think there is no career opportunity in it. The thing is that if a person fails to get into a sport professionally, there is not really any backup option available.
In high school teenagers have no time for physical activity at all because they have to attend 3 hour after school classes to train for the gruesome entrance exams.
We have shit politicians who ate corrupt beyond measure.
We recently had the International math Olympiads. India was placed fourth after the US, China and South Korea. 108 countries participate in this event.
I’m giving this example as a glimpse into the priorities in Indian families. India is a low income country where a huge population is still very poor. Education gets so much priority because many parents see it as a ticket to a better life, which is also very true.
Per capita GDP of US is around $85000, China is around $13000 and India is at $2700.
So you bet, people have very different priorities.
Olympics level athletes don’t just sprout up as soon as you build a handful of sports facilities. There can always be a few exceptionally talented individuals. But, in general, there needs to be a huge pool of people learning and playing the sport at school or college level, all across the country, for the best talents to be identified and trained.
This happens with Cricket in India. Kids grow up playing cricket, there are so many training institutes and tournaments. There are domestic leagues at various levels and India is home to the biggest and richest cricket league in the world.
As India grows richer, maybe a lot more kids will start getting involved in other sports when they get easy access to sports facilities as well
I don’t remember when was the last time any Indian gave an actual feck to Olympic sports. Everyone want their kids to be Doctor or Engineer but no one ever said about these sports
Mostly it is the high level of dopers who get screened out.
It’s not just India, Bangladesh has a large population and they achieved *checks notes* no medals at all.
Bunch of factors but the most critical ones are:
1) Culture of sports – Its outrageously rare to identify, cultivate and then groom a gold winning talent unless you are on to a kid from the age 4-8. Of course there would be exceptions but by and large this holds true. At that age, unless a kid is from a financially secure background, it’s impossible for a parent to devote their resources on what seems like a wild bet. This alone drastically reduces the pool of kids which could really make a difference. I would boil it down to maybe 5% of the total market size which could actually compete given all resources.
2) Genetics – Definitely not spousing eugenics but in general a vast majority of the south asian population is at a genetic disadvantage when it comes to sports. When the margins are that thin at the top. This isn’t just an Indian problem but rather a South Asian problem. Let’s say jf the NE states were its own country , i can say with a much higher degree of confidence that they would have a better chance of securing more medals in a wider variety of sports.
3) Sports – The vast majority of Olympic sports itself aren’t that accessible to everyone. Outside of athletics, every sport like Shooting, Archery, Swimming, Gymnastics etc need a ton of resources which India just doesn’t have to produce a critical mass of athletes to seriously upend the pecking order.
4) Criminal mismanagement of resources – Although India is doing better but it’s still nowhere close to tapping the resources it otherwise has. Imagine if all the colleges in India, 10000+ had sports scholarships..but they just don’t. This is a terrible miss and almost a self goal. Over centralization of anything kills it and that’s the story in a nutshell in India for any sport not named cricket.
In general- India has tried to replicate China and focus on some specific sports where it has a higher chance of success but again, in those sports, the other asian countries are always there.
TLDR; Its a multifaceted issue and is an abomination that a country this big performs this terribly but there aren’t any quick fixes and the structural dynamics of olympics will always make it a tall order for developing countries to expand the no of sports where they have a realistic chance.
Olympians are usually exceptional rather than the norm. For most sports, it takes serious resources to first scout these exceptionally genetically gifted athletes and then train them for a decade to get an Olympics gold.
Even in the most successful western countries, higher gold medals tally doesn’t mean that their populations are getting healthier. The obesity rates are still going up. Sure it is good for the athletes who get a chance to be part of such programs from their early life but a majority of the population doesn’t benefit from it. Unless you are into sports that gets televised or are endorsed by Nike, there is not much of a living wage you can make out of most of the sports.
So why should a poor Indian take up swimming unless his government is ready to pay him a life long salary at the cost of food on the plates of millions of poor citizens.
It’s a cultural difference. In india STEM oriented students are encouraged. If we keep cricket on the side and talk about other sports – growing up sports isn’t really considered cool, and has no funding. We had like a hour weekly to do as “sports” period and most students didn’t really do anything physical in that period. No one really gave us any direction or told us to play something.
Parents or teachers or society no one gives a shit about sports.
After immigrating to US after 2 decades – I see that in US sports are encouraged a lot and more importantly considered cool.
Also unlike China – there isn’t a lot of government intervention or push to churn out athletes. it’s a democracy so if market forces aren’t there – people do what they want.
Nobody is paying kids to play these type of sports, there are no facilities – so why would we play ? I hadn’t even heard of most the sports that are played in Olympics while growing up. For fun we play entirely different types of games, I remember playing “sitoliya” or carrom, and it was a leisure activity.
Swimming pools were/are expensive, and if your parents cared – they beat your ass for trying to swim in the rivers/lakes, cause every year like clockwork some dumb kid drowned in it.
So majority of the kids growing up aren’t really participating seriously in any kind of sports. They don’t watch sports or talk about them. Olympics is a blip on the radar – we don’t really know about the athletes so nobody is getting inspired by them or talking about them. But we do see the fancy car that was bought by the engineer/doctor/businessman got.
Anyone who is slightly well off goes to private schools and in private schools apart from studies you are kind of allowed to skip all sports.
No parents are coming to any games – if the school even organizes any games. I went to a top private school and don’t remember a single school game that people came to that weren’t participating.
Most of them don’t even have any stands or anything for any audience.
Culturally Indian society basically looks down on jobs that involve physical activities – like tradesman jobs like plumbing/electrician/janitor/construction are considered low jobs that poor people do. Even jobs like firemen and policeman aren’t considered good jobs. No kids aspire to be fireman or a cop – it’s a shitty job and no one respects you.
So I feel like a kid in india you realize all the “cool”people are ones with money who are either in engineering/medicine or business. No one really gives a shit about sports.
Why don’t you folks do this more by GDP per capita? Or do this for the math Olympiad (where India finished fourth) or Chess (where India is second ranked)?
Answer: because it’ll give you the result that makes India look better or sympathetic. And this is reddit, where that’s an enormous no no.
29 comments
Few weeks ago I was thinking the same why doesn’t my country produce Olympic medallists like our neighbour China or USA or anyone else.
The answer is a little complex and multifaceted.
Growing up pursuing sports came with privilege for many (expensive equipments or even being exposed to a sport) and it needed significant amount of dedication that meant giving 100% attention to academics was not possible.
Lots of parents would want their kids to become doctors or engineers hence they would force them to focus only on studies.Our education system emphasised heavily on studies.Although we did have Physical Education class or “games” class where we were allowed to participate in sports.We even had sports day where kids would gather and compete against each other.However these are not enough.
If somehow a kid was supported by his parents to pursue any kind of sports I think the infrastructure and other technicalities that came with pursuing a sports professionally weighed them down (mainly due to financial constraints) and inadequate support from government or anyone for these families.This is the case with most of our athletes.
However things are getting better now.Thanks to our players in Olympics or any other competition.They inspire each kid in my country.
In short no matter the colour of the medal or the result of the match.Their participation and representation is doing a very good job in inspiring others and hopefully we will do better.
I’m sure there’s more to it and it’s beyond my scope to explain it to anyone.Someone who has played sports on national/international levels may be able to explain it better and add more to it.
Look at Ukraine, their country is being invaded but their athletes still managed to win 3 gold, 5 silver, and 4 bronze medals. The crazy part is they had lost 487 athletes because of war with Russia: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1edswh0/russia_has_killed_at_least_487_ukrainian_athletes/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1edswh0/russia_has_killed_at_least_487_ukrainian_athletes/)
It pissed me off that India buy oil from Russia during war and sanctions, even modi went to Russia and met with Putin last month. What a piece of shit. I’m not hating India people I just hate your government. I love India movies btw.
Because no cricket.
I haven’t read the article yet, but my guess would be a combination of economic and cultural factors- a lot of people in India are really, really poor, and therefore do not have the resources to train for the Olympics. I don’t think their government sees creating more Olympic level athletes as a worthy goal. Also, culturally, I think a lot of families would have a hard time getting behind the gamble of training for the Olympics over the idea of going to college.
Thanks to Maths teachers who always showed up on time and snatch the PE/PT class hour for math lessons. Also whoever thought Yoga is as good as other physically demanding track and field sports.
Are familiar with meme, where indian parents forces their children to become doctor and engineer and get disappointed when their child gets A instead of A+. Well, thats real.
Money. My country is also reconsidering the system and wants to pour more money into it. I’m not sure it’s all it takes, but it’s a good start. And it’s not just the money from the state. Many sports require expensive equipment. I can’t imagine a kid from a poor family getting into horseriding or golf or many others that have representation in the Olympics.
Have they tried turning it off and then on again?
Sport is a middle class endeavour in India. Even for cricket the theory was always that if India ever got their act together that the international game would be unsalvageable in terms of competition. They are favourites for most tournaments and tests but they don’t actually win tournaments that often. You won’t find anyone in those Indian cricket teams that grew up with nothing.
They are completely unwilling to develop the game with “lower caste” people. Then replicate it with the other sports, it’s probably even more extreme because you would really have to go out of your way to find non cricket or Hockey sports.
So yes, there are over a billion of them but very few have access to sport. And a lot of that is due to their culture of discrimination against poorer people. It ain’t changing.
If Chess was an Olympic sport surely India would dominate like China does with diving.
Indians are not interested in any sport but cricket.
I misread it as “most popular country” first and had a good laugh.
I’ve read a few biographies of olympic medalists. Sure the country infrastructure and nutrition/training makes a difference, but these people are
Mentality monsters. There are plenty of Indian sportsmen with these traits (I would guess), so it’s not a country or cultural issue. I think there is no exposure to elite athletes in many Olympic categories in countries like India (perhaps). Role models make a huge difference. Katie Ledecky met Michael Phelps at her local swim club when she was 8 or 9. There are three Olympic track medalists at my local university right now. Cannot underestimate the impact that has.. Maybe changes are underway in India but it takes 2-3 decades for grassroots efforts to show results. If anything countries need to have a long term vision and be patient with their investments.
When a child has to work from age 4… Not enough time for leasure activities.
Different priorities/cultural preferences would be my guess. India consistently produces some of the greatest GMs in chess, and many spectate the major tournaments with great interest. By contrast, I assume they do not exhibit the same passion or make similar investment for Olympics sports.
Majority of Indians would spend money on education rather than on sports. Even Indian origin kids are not part of olympics representing US, UK or other countries.
Because they’re too busy raping and murdering women. Like what happened recently in the Kolkata Hospital.
Most per capita Golds at Olympics 2024
1. Dominica (per 70 K)
1. St. Lucia (per 180 K)
3. New Zealand (per 540 K)
4. Bahrain (per 850 K)
5. Slovenia (per 1.06 M)
6. Netherlands (per 1.20 M)
7. Georgia (per 1.28 M)
8. Ireland (per 1.32 M)
9. Australia (per 1.52 M)
10. Hungary (per 1.60 M)
Wow, all of the most upvoted comments talk only about the stereotypes without talking about the complexity of the country or its history.
Parents never send kids out to train because they think there is no career opportunity in it. The thing is that if a person fails to get into a sport professionally, there is not really any backup option available.
In high school teenagers have no time for physical activity at all because they have to attend 3 hour after school classes to train for the gruesome entrance exams.
We have shit politicians who ate corrupt beyond measure.
We recently had the International math Olympiads. India was placed fourth after the US, China and South Korea. 108 countries participate in this event.
I’m giving this example as a glimpse into the priorities in Indian families. India is a low income country where a huge population is still very poor. Education gets so much priority because many parents see it as a ticket to a better life, which is also very true.
Per capita GDP of US is around $85000, China is around $13000 and India is at $2700.
So you bet, people have very different priorities.
Olympics level athletes don’t just sprout up as soon as you build a handful of sports facilities. There can always be a few exceptionally talented individuals. But, in general, there needs to be a huge pool of people learning and playing the sport at school or college level, all across the country, for the best talents to be identified and trained.
This happens with Cricket in India. Kids grow up playing cricket, there are so many training institutes and tournaments. There are domestic leagues at various levels and India is home to the biggest and richest cricket league in the world.
As India grows richer, maybe a lot more kids will start getting involved in other sports when they get easy access to sports facilities as well
I don’t remember when was the last time any Indian gave an actual feck to Olympic sports. Everyone want their kids to be Doctor or Engineer but no one ever said about these sports
Mostly it is the high level of dopers who get screened out.
It’s not just India, Bangladesh has a large population and they achieved *checks notes* no medals at all.
Bunch of factors but the most critical ones are:
1) Culture of sports – Its outrageously rare to identify, cultivate and then groom a gold winning talent unless you are on to a kid from the age 4-8. Of course there would be exceptions but by and large this holds true. At that age, unless a kid is from a financially secure background, it’s impossible for a parent to devote their resources on what seems like a wild bet. This alone drastically reduces the pool of kids which could really make a difference. I would boil it down to maybe 5% of the total market size which could actually compete given all resources.
2) Genetics – Definitely not spousing eugenics but in general a vast majority of the south asian population is at a genetic disadvantage when it comes to sports. When the margins are that thin at the top. This isn’t just an Indian problem but rather a South Asian problem. Let’s say jf the NE states were its own country , i can say with a much higher degree of confidence that they would have a better chance of securing more medals in a wider variety of sports.
3) Sports – The vast majority of Olympic sports itself aren’t that accessible to everyone. Outside of athletics, every sport like Shooting, Archery, Swimming, Gymnastics etc need a ton of resources which India just doesn’t have to produce a critical mass of athletes to seriously upend the pecking order.
4) Criminal mismanagement of resources – Although India is doing better but it’s still nowhere close to tapping the resources it otherwise has. Imagine if all the colleges in India, 10000+ had sports scholarships..but they just don’t. This is a terrible miss and almost a self goal. Over centralization of anything kills it and that’s the story in a nutshell in India for any sport not named cricket.
In general- India has tried to replicate China and focus on some specific sports where it has a higher chance of success but again, in those sports, the other asian countries are always there.
TLDR; Its a multifaceted issue and is an abomination that a country this big performs this terribly but there aren’t any quick fixes and the structural dynamics of olympics will always make it a tall order for developing countries to expand the no of sports where they have a realistic chance.
Olympians are usually exceptional rather than the norm. For most sports, it takes serious resources to first scout these exceptionally genetically gifted athletes and then train them for a decade to get an Olympics gold.
Even in the most successful western countries, higher gold medals tally doesn’t mean that their populations are getting healthier. The obesity rates are still going up. Sure it is good for the athletes who get a chance to be part of such programs from their early life but a majority of the population doesn’t benefit from it. Unless you are into sports that gets televised or are endorsed by Nike, there is not much of a living wage you can make out of most of the sports.
So why should a poor Indian take up swimming unless his government is ready to pay him a life long salary at the cost of food on the plates of millions of poor citizens.
It’s a cultural difference. In india STEM oriented students are encouraged. If we keep cricket on the side and talk about other sports – growing up sports isn’t really considered cool, and has no funding. We had like a hour weekly to do as “sports” period and most students didn’t really do anything physical in that period. No one really gave us any direction or told us to play something.
Parents or teachers or society no one gives a shit about sports.
After immigrating to US after 2 decades – I see that in US sports are encouraged a lot and more importantly considered cool.
Also unlike China – there isn’t a lot of government intervention or push to churn out athletes. it’s a democracy so if market forces aren’t there – people do what they want.
Nobody is paying kids to play these type of sports, there are no facilities – so why would we play ? I hadn’t even heard of most the sports that are played in Olympics while growing up. For fun we play entirely different types of games, I remember playing “sitoliya” or carrom, and it was a leisure activity.
Swimming pools were/are expensive, and if your parents cared – they beat your ass for trying to swim in the rivers/lakes, cause every year like clockwork some dumb kid drowned in it.
So majority of the kids growing up aren’t really participating seriously in any kind of sports. They don’t watch sports or talk about them. Olympics is a blip on the radar – we don’t really know about the athletes so nobody is getting inspired by them or talking about them. But we do see the fancy car that was bought by the engineer/doctor/businessman got.
Anyone who is slightly well off goes to private schools and in private schools apart from studies you are kind of allowed to skip all sports.
No parents are coming to any games – if the school even organizes any games. I went to a top private school and don’t remember a single school game that people came to that weren’t participating.
Most of them don’t even have any stands or anything for any audience.
Culturally Indian society basically looks down on jobs that involve physical activities – like tradesman jobs like plumbing/electrician/janitor/construction are considered low jobs that poor people do. Even jobs like firemen and policeman aren’t considered good jobs. No kids aspire to be fireman or a cop – it’s a shitty job and no one respects you.
So I feel like a kid in india you realize all the “cool”people are ones with money who are either in engineering/medicine or business. No one really gives a shit about sports.
Why don’t you folks do this more by GDP per capita? Or do this for the math Olympiad (where India finished fourth) or Chess (where India is second ranked)?
Answer: because it’ll give you the result that makes India look better or sympathetic. And this is reddit, where that’s an enormous no no.