Neither the Will nor the Cash: Why India Wins So Few Olympic Medals
m.theatlantic.com
m.theatlantic.com
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...
I'm an Indian.
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.
The point is that national tallies can be thrown out by the internal medal-granting dynamics of sports.
If weightlifting still gave individual medals for the snatch and the clean & jerk as well as the total, it'd be even more noticeable.
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.
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.
I'm not Korean and only said what members of the Brazilian-Korean community, in which I have a some friends, said to me.
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.
Well true for the most part.
China's largest ethnic group being Han which outstrips the far fewer Zhuang, Manchu & Uyghur etc (order of billion to order of million).
The athletes there are really putting up with the best they have and can manage with the facilities, training and their other priorities in life.
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-time_Olympic_Games_medal_ta...
Also, to be pedantic, the first sentence of the article is incorrect: Bangladesh has won zero medals.
I don't think it's a bad essay, but these were a couple of points I noticed.
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.
Seems reasonable to me (but I went, studied, and got a good job instead of going to sports).
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.
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.
[1]http://dawn.com/2012/07/20/indias-top-wrestler-upset-over-la...
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.
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.
Disclaimer : am Indian.
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.
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.
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.
Although lentils, millets and cereals constitute a sizable portion of protein consumed by the average person.
Quoting wikipedia:
"During the period in which he won all six of his Hawaiian triathlons Dave Scott followed a strict vegetarian (vegan) diet."
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?
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.
Their macro-nutrient is generally about 10%-15% fat, 10% protein and 75%-80% carbs, and mostly from plant sources.
http://www.active.com/running/Articles/Eating_practices_of_t...
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.
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.
China : 1347M people, 386 participants
USA : 314M people, 530 participants
New Zealand: 4M people, 184 participants
Ireland : 5M people, 66 participants
Greece : 11M people, 105 participants
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 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' :)
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?
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.
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.
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'.
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.
You really need to keep your racism in check. I really don't know what else to say if your view is this twisted.
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.
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.).
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
Disagree. If the government _gives_ you something, it's not a right. It's just something they can take away from you when convenient.
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.
http://www.sfgate.com/sports/ostler/article/Missy-Franklin-s...
"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.""
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.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secr...
So it was 1978 and a lot of 'capitalism' has happened since, but the Party is still in charge.
EDIT: Basically what you see theorique implying below.
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.
I suppose you could whisper in the child's ear 'remember to under perform when you want to come back'.
Now that is ridiculous.
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."
India might be a democracy in name, but rule of law is very poorly enforced.