… finish last

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I’ve known for a while that India does poorly in the Olympics, but I had never realized exactly how poorly:

The world’s second most populous nation … ranks dead last worldwide in the number of Olympic medals won per capita. Paraguay, Niger and Iraq have done better. [Link]

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p designtimesp=”3266″>This statistic seems to only count countries that have won at least one medal, which leaves India better off than countries without medals, but that’s slim consolation.

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p designtimesp=”3268″>Now it may be unfair to compare medals on a per capita basis since that pits India against countries much smaller in population size and Olympic winnings are hard to scale up. However, even if you look at the two largest countries in the world, China has won over 100 times as many medals as India in the past few decades:

Since 1984, when China rejoined the Olympic Games after decades of isolation, the Asian superpower has won 320 medals. India, its political and economic rival, has won three… [Link]

And in a century of Olympics, India has won just 16 medals (fewer than that other nation of a billion, China, typically wins at a single [sic] Games) and only eight in the last 50 years. [Link]

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p designtimesp=”3277″>But, you object, China has a communist-era olympic medal factory which even tries to breed athletes. Fair enough, but even amongst Commonwealth countries in general, India lags so far behind that the officials of the Commonwealth Games have scolded India for not doing enough to avoid embarrassment when it next hosts the games in 2010 [Link]. No matter how you cut it, India is at the bottom of sporting countries worldwide.

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p designtimesp=”3281″>It is true that India does better in some sports than in others, but India’s best sports all require little physical exertion:

“India is doing very well in chess. And pretty well at cue sports like billiards and snooker. And for the past couple of years, Indian golfers have done very well on the Asian circuit…” [Link]

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p>The fact is that the Indian government has (perhaps rightly) never invested in sports, and what they spend has a low ROI:

“There are a lot of other priorities, like education and electricity,” said Indian Olympic Association Secretary General Randhir Singh. India does funnel a respectable amount of money toward its sports federations… [but] India’s sports centers spend much of their budget on salaries for bureaucrats, while athletes complain about lack of money for track improvements, coaches and better running shoes. [Link]

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p designtimesp=”3290″>And market incentives are entirely oriented towards producing cricket stars, so sports with few viewers languish:

But perhaps the biggest reason India can’t achieve Olympic fame is cricket… Over the years, it has become India’s only important sport. As a result, a huge share of corporate sponsorship money goes to the cricket stars, and every athletically minded kid dreams of being one of them. In India’s villages, few kids play soccer or run races. Instead they play cricket. [Link]

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p designtimesp=”3294″>Outside of cricket, things are pretty much teh suck:

The painful truth is India is rubbish at pretty much every other game. It has no football team worthy of the name, ranking 142nd in the world, behind the Maldives (paradise-island nation, pop. 339,330). Its rugby squad lost 78-3 in a recent match in England, to Pershore (pleasant market town, pop. 7,304). [Link]

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p designtimesp=”3298″>Culture also plays a role – Pakistan and Sri Lanka also do poorly in the Olympics and poor Bangladesh has yet to pick up a single medal. And again, without much of a market for domestic sports aside from cricket, parents have no incentive to push their children the way parents in America do:

“In India, parents do not encourage their children to play games. That’s a big handicap,” the Olympic Association’s Singh said. “But if there’s no money in sport, no parent wants his child to waste his time…” [Link]

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p designtimesp=”3302″>Lastly, consider the graph at the bottom of the post which shows that Indian men are the most virginal in the world [via Manish]. In America every young man knows that scoring on the field will help him score off it. There’s a reason why most sports involve getting a ball in a net / goal past a tenacious defender and you don’t need to be Freud to see it.

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p designtimesp=”3305″>But in India, where the average male loses his virginity at 19, incentives are different. Doing well at field hockey wont help you win the heart of fair maiden, but getting into engineering school might help you marry a cuter (less homely) girl when it comes time for your marriage to be deranged.

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p designtimesp=”3306″>So here’s my question — Is there is a way to increase India’s medal booty, and should India even try?

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p designtimesp=”3309″>After all, India is 10th in the world in world records, and has a very healthy sense of national self esteem:

the “2003 Global Attitudes survey found India was the most nationalistic place on earth, with 74% of respondents ‘completely agreeing’ that Indian culture is superior. “[cite].

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p designtimesp=”3315″>India excels in plenty of areas, like patents filed, fastest 10 miles skipped, and number of men singing and dancing on screen while wearing fugly costumes. Should we even try to second-guess India’s priorities?

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p>Related posts: American investing $120M to train Indians for Olympics, If not Torino, then where? and Desi athletes take the gold.

355 thoughts on “… finish last”

  1. Lots of talk about meat. What about fish. Does that make a difference?

    fish ist high protein/low fat. not a bad chice (depending on the fish and how its prepared of course). im not talkin about mcfish sandwiches or something.

  3. Puli – no need to play sport. Just show up at a few meet. Be prepared for some bone crunching physical action 😉

  4. A very high percentage of 1st generation American babies born to Indian mothers are underweight, which means we are apparently in “crisis”.

    1st gen Indians in the US are actually from the middle class and upper middle class. If their babies are underweight than what would be the situation of the actually malnourished Moms back in India.

  5. yes, and neither do I agree with the relevance of getting laid to all this… Its not like the adolescents in india strategically gave up on sporting excellence as an avenue to getting laid… Being good at sport is useful just about as much as anywhere else in terms of impressing a female.

  6. Ennis – desi women like sport – no more and no less than women from other parts of the world.

    Outside of cricket, one Indian women who is now being noticed at the international level along with few guys in tennis (tennis always had them – Krishnans, Amritrajs) is: Sania Mirza in tennis

    Does she look underfed, absolutely not. There is also a long jumper, I think Anu George, and some female weight lifters.

    Sure, Indian athletics and sports outside of the cricket and hockey is on the bottom of the rung as a whole. That is not anything new.

  9. Apart from physical/stamina issues that others have highlighted above, I think the main reason for poor performance is that there is hardly any solid financial backing ( private or government ) to make sports as an alternative career or a professional hobby that one can excel in (Cricket is slightly better off). Parents have blinkered views on their children’s career choice/options which is not good either.

  11. re: weight,

    1) there is an environmental (nutritional) angle

    2) but it is probably false that all groups have the same final set point in height correcting for same nutrition. e.g., asian american children end up somewhat smaller. the japanese have gone from average of 5 feet to 5’6 in males, but they still don’t hit the northern european norm.

    3) after for malnutrition being overstated, likely a little, but the stunting difference between classes is pretty obvious. so let’s not overplay the genetic angle.

  12. ok. simply about the sports bit- first if we’re saying that the propensity of indian kids to play cricket growing up is responsible for the lack of success in other sports, shouldn’t that be a valid argument if we were actually GOOD at cricket? I’m admittedly not the biggest follower of the sport (i prefer to play and watch sports w/more speed, hitting, athleticism) but i thought India just lost a series to England and had a pretty sad performance at the last world cup.

    As for concentrating on malnourished children versus getting an extra gold or two, I completely agree. However, private money should be the impetus for athletic improvment. There is a growing middle class nowadays and a slow but visible shift from the solely education based direction kids are given (where competition for civil service jobs then became competition for an engineer/doctor/accountant/etc position). All that needs to be done is that some clever MBA has to set up a private national league for say soccer, field hockey or basketball league. Then recruit from local schools and build the league slowly and offer competitive salaries. If Indians can cheer for American Idol they can sure as hell cheer for our version of Ronaldo, and the territorial/geographical rivalries would be great. I’m worried that gambling and throwing games might be a problem but that’s something that’ll have to be overcome. Either way there’s a market for this too because that middle class has the disposable income to buy tickets. Let’s get Sunil Gulati to come up with a plan.

  13. regardless of smaller physiques, its still a matter of will for those who don’t have to worry about simple issues of survival. Medals are awarded in the flyweight and lightweight division in boxing just as much as at cruiserweight and light heavyweight. You might not be eating an enormous amount of proteins but in the lightest categories for boxing for example, its more about speed and reflexes as its rare to score a knockout.

  16. Lastly, consider the graph at the bottom of the post which shows that Indian men are the most virginal in the world [via Manish]. In America every young man knows that scoring on the field will help him score off it. There’s a reason why most sports involve getting a ball in a net / goal past a tenacious defender and you don’t need to be Freud to see it.

    yeah. cause what india needs is more people.

  19. protein isn’t just about size though. it might influence the proportion of muscle, quickness and reaction time. also, re: vegetarianism…i was really thinking mostly creatine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine

    I dont suppose it matters where your nutrients come from. as long as you get them. Im sure all of these things can come from vegetables in some form. might require a lot of supplements though.

  20. Apart from physical/stamina issues that others have highlighted above, I think the main reason for poor performance is that there is hardly any solid financial backing ( private or government ) to make sports as an alternative career or a professional hobby that one can excel in (Cricket is slightly better off). Parents have blinkered views on their children’s career choice/options which is not good either.

    Yes, but this may not be as big a factor as the other ones like diet. Because, as was pointed out in the original article, countries like Paraguay, Niger and Iraq have done better (on what shd be reasonable metrics). And there probably are a lot of people who will easily develop the necessary ambition, given a little confidence. Even the illiterate people may not be quite as dumb to not understand that you will necessarily become a super super star if you can do really well in a sport (I mean, an indian athlete probably has the highest stakes for winning a medal right now – ex: if a star athlete could choose which country he/she wins the medals for, I conjecture that he would derive the maximum utility and stardom if he chose india because it would be such a big deal in this sport-star-starved country 😛

    It’s funny that there are few (and perhaps no) female commentators on this thread, which goes to prove my point about desi women and sports 😉

    : :

    is my name gender-neutral?

    I hope mine gives no hint of gender either

  21. Pakistani cricketers are always considered very athletic…….then, they have the Khan family of squash……that produces world champions for last 50 years

    pakistanis believe they are racially superior. i say this because multiple pakistanis have told me this. the problem i have with the genetic hypothesis is that the punjabis and sindhis of pakistan are basically the same as the punjabis across the border in india. the balouch and the pathans are different, but not that different (they are genetically generally a little closer to eastern iranians than they are to punjabis). i think there is an argument for culture & diet here.

  22. Im sure all of these things can come from vegetables in some form. might require a lot of supplements though.

    creatine requires supplements. it is mostly found in vertebrates and a few invertebrates. vegetarians have lower levels of it without supplements.

  23. the balouch and the pathans are different

    The Khan family of squash are Pathans.

    Also, a lot of their cricketers known for their athletism….are Pathans.

    For that matter, current Indian fast bowlers are Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan….any hints. No doubt, there was Kapil Dev too.

    Pakistan have had some very fast field hockey players.

  24. 2) but it is probably false that all groups have the same final set point in height correcting for same nutrition. e.g., asian american children end up somewhat smaller. the japanese have gone from average of 5 feet to 5’6 in males, but they still don’t hit the northern european norm.

    This is what I meant.

    On vegetarianism and human potential, CV Raman, Chandrasekhar, the guy who one the maths medal this year, Ramanujan were vegetarians. most of the Indian rocket and atomic program scients, the ISRO scientists, are vegetarian. Can we honestly say they may have been better if they were eating meat?

  26. Cricket is hardly a full-contact sport

    and it not being a full-contact sport is hardly the problem. It is that the game lends itself quite easily to style-conscious hand-eye coordinated batsmen, fast bowlers concerned with putting extra weight on their oft-injured frames and some slow bowlers who don’t see a belly as impediment to turning the ball. All their fears are justified, of course, but that’s not the only way to play the game–look at the Aussies, English and South Africans who have made great fielding given in any of their matches–athletes can and do make their sides much better than the rest (re: Aussie dominance of Test and ODI cricket for the past 10 years.). Athleticism is not necessarily discouraged by the game and it is unproductive to focus on the rules of the game as the genesis of Indian suckage in sport.

    There is also the question of mental toughness here, as it takes quite a bit more in the way of mental fortitude when faced with the certainty that someone is going to throw a leather ball at you rather than across your body(even at the height of baseball’s popularity in the US–a sport not conducive to athleticism across many positions–there still was interest in other sports and they mushroomed in popularity only after properly utilizing TV to increase exposure)

    part from physical/stamina issues that others have highlighted above, I think the main reason for poor performance is that there is hardly any solid financial backing ( private or government ) to make sports as an alternative career or a professional hobby that one can excel in

    brij,

    i agree. However, if there existed a socially sanctioned phenomenon, like pursuing sports for the sake of excelling in it, then government-sponsored sporting clubs would be unnecessary. In the UK and many other western countries, there exist umpteen, ultra-local clubs for nearly every major sport relevant to that country but they’re only able to enjoy all of those opportunities to enjoy sport because of disposable income in the form of free time. India must develop the ability to take time off and also the attitude that such time spent in sporting activities is worthwhile.

  27. Roger Federer blogging for the ATP: “This is quite an experience here in Japan as they have the best toilets in the world. You could sit on the toilet for hours! The seat is warm, there is a water spray…Toto, the makers of this special toilet seat, are geniuses. The toilet in my bathroom is like a space shuttle, there are so many buttons that I am always afraid to press the wrong one. I definitely want to buy one for my apartment!…My favourite sushi is tuna but I cannot eat squid. They served me squid last night and that made me feel like wanting to become a vegetarian again! People maybe don’t know but I wasn’t eating either meat or fish until 10 years ago but now I eat everything…I’m off to dinner with Tim Henman and Stefan Koubek at the teppanyaki. Tim is paying tonight so I will make a double order of Kobe beef!!!”

  29. ce blast,

    India won the test (5 day test matches) series against England recently.

    India lost the one day series against England recently.

    Both are different, yet were being played at the same time.

  30. Can we honestly say they may have been better if they were eating meat?

    mebee. creatine probably gives a boost to normals in IQ it seems (i know people who take it for that reason). if you are WAY high on the IQ distribution it might not matter.

  31. On vegetarianism and human potential, CV Raman, Chandrasekhar, the guy who one the maths medal this year, Ramanujan were vegetarians. most of the Indian rocket and atomic program scients, the ISRO scientists, are vegetarian. Can we honestly say they may have been better if they were eating meat?

    It could mean that in matters of intellect, vegetarianism probably has no effect. However, narrowing your scope to within india, I think you inted to falsely suggest that these people do well because of the vegetarianism, etc. But I think the correct reason is the cultural cause for it – people in India with more affluent and privileged backgrounds were mostly vegetarian till recently (recently – in the timescale of decades)(exceptions exist, of course) Nobel laureates is again an extreme case of too small a sample – so the fact that an indian non-vegetarian hasn’t won a nobel yet isn’t too good an argument, but there are indeed a good number of meat eating indians in intellectual/academic circles in modern day, and their representation will probably grow.

  32. Creatine is important for neurological strength and reflexes and admittedly none of the pro boxers who I saw when I trained were vegetarians (they all at the least had a eggs/fish heavy diet), but most of the lower weight guys I know have improved their reflexes from low weight weight lifting or crazy repetition drills. I’ve always been under the impression that creatine is far more effective for muscle building than reflexes though–as that’s what most of the guys who i knew used it for.

  34. thanks kush.

    If they were being played at the same time, is there one that the countries assign more importance to? Maybe putting their B team in the other one?

  35. thanks, musical.

    Anju Bobby George (born April 19, 1977) is an Indian athlete. Anju Bobby George made history when she won the bronze medal in Long Jump at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics in Paris. With this achievement, she became the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in a World Championships in Athletics clearing 6.70 m. She went on to win the silver medal at the IAAF World Athletics Final in 2005, a performance she considers her best.

    Milka Singh and others were in Olympics.

  36. Here’s a random thought I’m going to toss out:

    All sporting contests are contests between the best that each country (or city or region or school…) has to offer. In this light, the best of India get creamed by the best of elsewhere.

    What if you have a sporting contest between averages instead of the best?

    In other words, instead of picking the best athletes and making them better, if you were just to pull some random people off the street and ask them to run 100 meters, which country is likely to do well?

    I’m not saying that this is ever likely to become popular, but just think of the awesome incentive to public fitness that this system would provide. If you were to tweak the system so that the selection of competitors would be done by an opponent, then you can safely bet on their picking the most out-of-shape, out-of-breath person they can find. In such a case, it would be in every country’s best interests to make sure that all their citizens are in shape.

    It’s not like taking the best and making them better. It will be like taking the worst and making them not-quite-as-bad.

    It will be like No Athlete Left Behind. They better not be Left Behind. They ought to be Right Ahead.

  37. If they were being played at the same time, is there one that the countries assign more importance to? Maybe putting their B team in the other one?

    Usually, 5 day test matches have more mojo, when they are being played together (test and odis).

    5 day test matches are traditional, and still carry more stamp of approval.

    Sometimes, their lineup for one days is slightly different to give their team players rest, and use different talent, not always.

  38. It’s a theory, but we eat meat in most northern states, it’s mainly in the south that people are pure vegetarians.

    Already addressed by Razib and shown to be false. Everything N. Indians know of South India seems to be based on interaction with Tambrams, not surprising given their presence in Mumbai and Delhi. Most of us Tamil non-Brahmins eat meat though we consider it to be something that should be done in moderation (i.e. is karmically bad and is thought to make people bellicose if eaten in excess.

    Anyway, this ranks low on the list of daily indignities faced by Indians. It would be good business for private sector consumer goods companies to promote teams as someone else suggested earlier, the government should focus on emaciated and illiterate kids

  39. instead of picking the best athletes and making them better, if you were just to pull some random people off the street and ask them to run 100 meters, which country is likely to do well?

    ofcourse aussies!!!

  40. In honor of my Hidustani-speaking grandparents, I must say bah!–to all this sports stuff– we (desis) excel in truly important areas, like science, medicine, and finance–as long as you’re fit, who gives a f%ck about your relative sporting level.

  41. In honor of my Hidustani-speaking grandparents, I must say bah!–to all this sports stuff– we (desis) excel in truly important areas, like science, medicine, and finance–as long as you’re fit, who gives a f%ck about your relative sporting level.

    pl define “important”

  43. finance

    calling stupid finance shit important seems to be a stretch, unless you are defining importance by paycheck. in that case, athletics rocks if you can go pro.

  44. rob…

    some of us were happy we didn’t have to wait till our 20’s and $$ to get laid though.

  45. @ 88,

    Everything N. Indians know of South India seems to be based on interaction with Tambrams, not surprising given their presence in Mumbai and Delhi

    I agree with you totally. In fact I am not sure whether one of the statement made above that vegetarianism increases as one goes down south of india is true…..anybody have any statistics on this ?

  46. 93 · Puliogre in da USA on September 9, 2007 11:12 PM · Direct link finance calling stupid finance shit important seems to be a stretch

    Puli,

    Don’t sell yourself short–there’s a reason countries with more flexible access to capital do a lot better!

  47. we (desis) excel in truly important areas, like science, medicine, and finance-

    not really. i know what you mean, and especially in the USA it seems like this is true. but the reason i have started harping on the malnutrition angle it is shocking how repulsively crappy india’s human capital is. american brownz are chest thumping about spelling bee champs, but the majority of the world’s browns are probably not functionally literate. indians seem to take some pride in the IT success of bangalore and hyderabad, and that’s fine, good to focus on the positive. but jesus, IT isn’t going to put roti or rice on the table of most indians ever.

    (btw, i think one issue is a lot of brownz think of “we” in terms of their ethnicity & caste. but then we should drop the pretense that it is something special about indians, as opposed to iyers, marwaris, khatris, etc.)

  48. anybody have any statistics on this

    follow the links, the statistics are there. obligate vegetarianism is highest in inland north india. lowest along the coasts of the south and in bengal.

  49. Here’s an interesting, thoroughly relevant, though lengthy paper on malnutrition, and the importance of animal product consumption. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/09/14/000160016_20040914173648/Rendered/PDF/296140Contribu1ource0Foods01public1.pdf

    Also, it is true that there are many highly intelligent Indian Vegetarians. However, you have to look at averages, not at a tiny few who may be genetically blessed…who may or may not have succeeded regardless. Their existence does nothing to show whether consumption of animal products affects human potential. Similarly I could name hundreds of meat eating scientists and intellectuals, but that in and of itself does not indicate the benefits of eating meat.