edit: if downvoting me to hell is going to give a bronze medal to India, then please down-vote me to oblivion.
If you're claiming Indian athletes are incompetent - WHY? Lack of training, the good talent decides on other career paths, etc.
#2. The article is not deep, it rings like shallow talking point of India not getting medal apologists.
#3. Incompetence from head to toe. There are multiple factors, but to simplify and make it sound like a single problem issue, the biggest impediment to Indian sports are Indian Olympic Committee and Ministry of Sports, are primarily plump political posts.
#4. No number of explanations can convince me there is a method behind the madness of 1.2 billion people that too a majority under the age of 30, cannot win one bronze medal.
To win one bronze medal, you really do not need Nike or University of Oregon track and field program. Smaller nations that are far more corrupt than India were pulling medals and India did not. This is not a one off, India has remained at the bottom of medal tally for long time, Bejing and London gave some hope because of multiple medals, and now reverting to big ZERO is disheartening and maddening at the same time.
For example, the article mentions caste, buts fails to notice that most of the athletes are not affluent people from upper castes. The kids going into cricket are from relatively well off families who are able to afford kits. However, The archery team's top people are mostly from tribal backgrounds. Also most of the people in the wrestling and boxing teams are from lower-middle/working class OBC backgrounds. I'm assuming the same can be said for a lot of sports like track and field, weightlifting etc. (the exceptions being sports like tennis, badminton etc.)
Sport does present a good opportunity for many people from poorer backgrounds, who are able get jobs in public sector companies, for their sporting achievements. So these athletes have plenty of motivation to do well, and follow their prescribed training in a disciplined manner.
What needs to be examined is how effective the sports administration is in various levels in identifying and supporting the athletes. Going by the results, they are not effective at all. So logically they have to take most of the blame.
Edit: Also the article mentions good things about India's achievements in cricket. There again we have a very mediocre team which has a very difficult time playing in unfamiliar conditions outside India. However, I have heard good things of late, so that may be changing. So there may be some truth to the statement that our country produces some very mediocre-middling sportsmen irrespective of the facilities given to them.
Prior to 2016, their latest gold medal was earned in 2008 and that year they earned 3 medals total, and prior to that in 1980, in which year they earned 1 medal total.
[1] http://www.olympic.org/olympic-results [2] https://www.olympic.org/india [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_at_the_Olympics [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-time_Olympic_Games_medal_t...
* which of course this might not be
This is of course false. The sample size has to be calculated based on the size of the population.
Funding and culture are the biggest issues. The only sport Indians care about and that you can financially support yourself professionally is in cricket. Unsurprisingly India is quite good at cricket and would def. have some medals if it was an Olympic sport.
The truth is that indian has millions of potential athletes who never pursue their passion because they are pressured by parents to focus on academics and other areas. There is no culture glorifying athletes. The few who do end up being athletes play cricket.
Give it time. Internet literacy is still weak in the general public.
Once they make a Bollywood film incorporating the wisdom of /r/fitness and /r/steroids , india will come with a vengeance. Atleast I hope...
But seriously -- do you think they'd play 20-20 matches to make it fit? That's still almost twice as long as a soccer^H^H^H^H^H^Hfootball match.
Yes many nations with marginal cricket teams (perhaps including India?) would complain that they were left out, but similar unfairness happens in every Olympic discipline, e.g. when the top five in the world are from one nation that can only send one competitor.