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.
Were you serious?! I thought that statement was fully tongue-in-cheek.
And anyway, scoring can be done both on the field and in the exam hall. Or on trivia quiz shows.
“Speaking of cricket, the Twenty20 World Cup starts tomorrow.”
do you know of anyone other than willow.tv or directv that is televising or streaming the matches live?
While i definitely don’t consider chess a sport, there is something interesting to draw from India’s experience in Chess. Before the last 15 years, India was basically a nobody in Chess. Since the rise of Vishwanathan Anand in the 90’s to the top of the chess world, there were no other Indian players of international stature. Recently, however there has been a huge boom in chess success, to the point now where India is generally considered one of the world powers in the game. While it is true, Razib, that most of the players are tambrahms, this is beginning to change as well. I would guess since Anand was a tambrahm, originally most of the kids, and parents, who were inspired were of the same community. Then came players like P Harikrishna(currently third in India) and Koneru Humpy from Andhra Pradesh. If you look even further down the line many of the future stars of Indian chess have names like Sandipan Chanda(Bengal), Parimarjan Negi, Abhijeet Gupta(Rajasthan), Sahaj Grover. What this shows is that success engenders success…I would guess the same would be the case in other sports as well.
It is important to note, however, that Chennai’s tennis stars like the Krishnan’s and Amritraj’s did not inspire a similar boom. Perhaps this is because none of these people reached the level Anand has in chess. However there is a definate culture of tennis in the region that has resulted from their success, which continues to churn out players, such as Leander Paes(trained in Chennai) and the new star Somdev(raised and trained in Chennai). But here again, the original success of the Tamil tennis players led to people outside the state, such as Bhupathi(karnataka) and Mirza(andhra) to pick up the sport.
It’s not so much that it should be an incentive – it is that sex is integral to a full life, and psycho-sexual tension resulting from not having it or being prevented from having it – interferes with the sense of well-being necessary for success. This is, of course, true for intellectual success also. College sports recruiters understand this well – their pitch to athletes often includes “the full package”, and the assurance that it will continue to be available if the athletes came to their school.
wait…let me get this straight….getting high test scores and doing well on trivia quiz shows in india gets you @ss? wow…dbd dating scene much different.
“What this shows is that success engenders success…I would guess the same would be the case in other sports as well.”
that’s what kamran abbasi meant, and i think it’s true. even with countries like kenya, ethiopia and smaller caribbean countries, their success – and especially the material success that comes with it enabling them to often escape difficult lives and circumstances — in certain sports or areas of sport inspires others to follow the same path and older influences/sports either die off or go into decline. there are some caribbean countries where cricket used to be popular, but because of the success of locals in non-traditional sports like american baseball, basektball and american football and especially athletics, these are now the dominating sports of interest and of play.
I spent some time reading up on this, and I’m not sure how easy or difficult it is for a dedicated eater. Links: 1, 2, 3.
I’m amazed that those competitive eaters are so thin. If those nutrition specialists can figure out how my body can turn 0.5 ounces of sour cream into 1 lb of fat, we might solve world hunger once and for all.
How about a bullshitting contest? Did you know that 59% of Americans sleep with their cellphones on vibrate under the pillow so that they can wake up when they receive a text message or call?
No no no! I meant a high score! As in a numerical score. Not a “number of people I have slept with” score.
Of course, high test scores indirectly lead to better chance of you joining a well-paying profession, increasing the chances of you being trapped in a match-making aunty’s net, leading to a prospective match, eventually leading to scoring in the 2nd sense. Just a few years after the test scores too.
did you know that 80% of 100% of SM commenters spent 80% of the 80% of their waking day spent at work of the 60% of their day spent awake commenting on SM?
btw
People should not compare India’s population with its sports success directly. There are only a tiny amount of people who have the opportunity, and environment to reach such a level. In tennis there are essentially 0 public tennis courts in India, while there is nearly 1/100 people in California. There are probably more than 10X the number of people who play tennis in California compared to the whole of India. This is why the chess success is impressive, I would doubt more than 1/1000 people(about a million) even know how to play the game in the entire country. Compare this to lets say Israel where the average kid probably learns the game growing up.
Good point #210. writing india off due to spurious reasons such as genetics is shortsighted.
a desi already rules this sport.
whew you almost got me to study.
Bow Chcika Wow Wow!
WGIIA:
I found this link, which seems to be half the price of willow.tv
http://www.livecrickethome.com/?gclid=CKCzoqyiuY4CFSasGgodYEdvxQ
I think it depends on the stage of growth for kids in india. If it is anytime before 10th standard, I dont think kids are that enthused about studies. After 10th, I can definitely see a bias towards studies.
I grew up in small town tamilnadu and I spent more time in the baking sun(which is why I wrote a post on games I played here) than studying(except in 12th standard).
risible, thanks. will check it out. i have dishtv, but of course it has to be direct tv that’s showing it!
I cannot believe people are seriously trying to argue a) that chess is a sport, and that b) it is somehow superior to physical activity because it is mentally difficult. They’re not even comparable. That’s like if someone asked if I could pole-vault, and I said I was a super fantastic Mathlete. Please.
Puli, that’s totally possible. I have recently been very disabused of my California-centric ideas re: gender norms/roles. 🙂 That said, of the desi women who do consider themselves to be athletes/athletic, I think it would be unfair to say they are not team-sports oriented. I don’t think going to the gym is even on par with training for rigorous sports, whether they’re individual or team based.
Ennis, no.
Yes, that is true. (But however, all these kids from AP are from another privileged caste themselves, even though its a meat eating non-bram caste)
THANK YOU!
Camille, I came in mid-thread to say that chess demands psychological toughness and ability to withstand enormous stress, and that this ability is also critical to success in physically demanding sports. Nobody said chess is “superior” to physical activity.
Though I noticed later that WGiiA had said here:
I’m sure WGiiA will explain what was actually meant.
RE: desi girls and sports The most popular sport/game with the brown kids I grew up with: handball. …Because there was NOTHING else to do! But that environment is pretty different from the stereotypical ABD ‘model minority in white suburbia’ type upbringing, so I’ll say that since, I’ve seen my relatives and family friends of a high SES encouraging both their sons and daughters to play sports like soccer and tennis (oh how they LOVE tennis–they also make sure that they learn swimming, as well as ‘cultural’ stuff). I agree with what someone said before, I don’t think Bend it Like Beckham-type anti-girls-playing-sports sexism applies to browns in the U.S., for the most part.
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned malnutrition in the desh leading to large numbers of birth defects as a reason for why there isn’t a big emphasis on athletics in India.
RE: desis and fitness Again, I’ve seen the ones in the disapora of a high SES become very health-conscious and even (gasp) completely give up rice, realizing that eating rice every single day is really bad for your health. I’m convinced that there’s something about brown people’s genetics that makes carbohydrates hate us. So, so cruel considering our diet.
@camille
Thank you. Chess is not a support! You know what else involves dedication, perseverance and psychological stress—scrabble, apples to apples, poker, terrorism, unlatching a bra, getting along with co workers, walking a straight line with your finger on your nose during a dwi test
while some of those may be enjoyable in a competitive setting they are not sports
@shodan
I don’t really think nascar is a sport either—all types of racing seem game like to me. But the physical exertion is definitely far greater than in say a chess or something. The conditions inside the cars during these marathon races usually result in the loss of a couple lbs of water weight and I don’t remember the last time a chess player died when taking somebody elses pawn with his/her bishop.
@whose god is it anyway
Again from ignorance, I thought Tendulkar and Ganguly were considered old/past their prime and pretty average at this point? Also I thought Dravid had like his captaincy revoked. Again, apologies for the ignorance.
Generally too a lot of the sports that people are saying dont involve much brains (such as running etc) actually do–if you’re running a 100 m dash and actually expect to be competitive you have to be incredibly focused and should spend literally months just getting down breathing and pacing. For longer races it definitely becomes psychological.
And if the problem for more affluent indians was that they were always studying and doing tuition (and apparently not learning much in school) then maybe universities (at least private ones) need to adopt an American system of admissions where they weight heavily extra curriculars such as sports/clubs/arts/volunteer work/leadership. I can’t imagine a difference of a point or two in gpa is necessarily more valuable than an invidual w/multiple talents
I think this was the major topic of much of the early conversation.
As for the contention that lack of sex <==> lack of athleticism, I’m not sure I really buy it, mostly because I don’t buy the Durex study. It seems like too small a sample group, and I find it hard to believe that India is really the country with the lowest percentage of people who have unprotected sex.
@nala
I don’t know about the idea that handball was so unusual because of some white suburbia element. Most of white suburbia is trying to emulate hip hop/rap culture. Most of the Indian kids I knew growing up were far more into ‘black’ subculture and a lot more of them played hoops (how come there are no indian hoops stars? where’s our Alaa Abdelnaby or Chen Jianghua?) or handball than say hockey and football. I did so just because I liked to hit things, but that’s a separate story for my shrink.
oops. that should be: lack of sex = lack of athleticism
maybe im not of the right age group to have seen this. most desis when i was growing up (where i was growing up in suburbia) were the ‘spoiled rich kids in town’. other kids needed to work after school. desis took piano and tennis lessons. they behaved ‘white’. that could be a function of geography.
@ ce blast
oh yeah, definitely true about brown kids trying to emulate hip-hop culture. that’s true of the aforementioned handball-playing, as well as the filthy rich ones. basketball would’ve been more popular, but there wasn’t a court or even just a hoop around.
i would imagine that handball isn’t really a popular sport in white suburbia when you have little league and organized afterschool soccer instead.
It’s not just the population advantage India has over other countries with cricket. They are the Yankees of the cricket world. For them not being able to dominate England and getting moral victories over a win here and there as if they are on equal footing is silly. Very few give a shit about cricket in England. They do not even show it on free TV for the most part. Even in Australia which dominates India, cricket is not that big a deal. For India not to be a perennial top 3 team in cricket just shows how overhyped they are. The worst thing about the Indian cricket team – they are frequently ill prepared on a mental basis. Even under their hyped Ganguly, i saw frequent mental strategy errors. Teams like Australia seem to outthink and outplay them.
chachaji, i guess i mean i put a higher premium on chess as a competitive event (and sports does not equate to purely muscular exertion) than something like trampolining, a recent addition to the already bloated Olympics. trampolining may require more obvious physical exertion in that it’s all about movement and obvious action, but I’ve been to high level chess tournaments and speed chess tournaments. Anyone who thinks there is no physical ability or exertion is mistaken, and its certainly more exciting than watching someone do a limited rote set of aerial flips on a trampoline (likewise, skateboarding is a newer winter olympic sport, but i found the events like the half pipe, with its limited and repetitious nature, a bit boring compared to the downhil skiing or shooting component of the biathlon) .
in the end, it’s down to the individual. sports that were once part of the olympics are now no longer so and vice versa. if some don’t want to see chess as a sport, that’s up to them. i personally don’t find american football much of a sport or some of the people on the field to be athletes, but i can see why it is to many:) some people don’t think golf is a sport because they have caddies, some don’t think Federer is greater than Sampras and some don’t think of weightlifting as a real sport. bridge is recognized by the olympic committee. but as someone else pointed out, sport is also very much about mental activity/strategy/planning and the ability to concentrate intensely (without being coached) for long periods of time. you see this in chess, tennis, cricket (especially when batting for hours on end in a Test match without getting out) and golf. to dismiss the mind as not as important as the body in what is defined as sport is shortsighted in my opinion.
This is just empty resentment talking and it may be totally fallacious, easily corrected, misguided, poorly constructed and momentarily but:
The glories associated with sex and sports: What is your country’s average age for “boning bitches” and how many olympic medals has your country won?
Age 9 or younger AND over 2000 Medals = Your country is the Alpha and Omega Phallus!
Age 13 and 1000 Medals = Your country is still a Phallus though just an average one with future erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation problems if your country’s malaise is not soon corrected.
Higher than age 13 and lower than 500 Medals = Your country is an inefficient, defective Phallus matter of fact you have no Phallus and will be penetrated soon!
Lesson: sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports = National Pride, Self-Esteem and all the etceteras…
Stupid? Harsh? Excessive? Totally missed the point of this post? Probably….
*aforementioned handball-playing ones
this sounds like something out of the movie ‘idiocracy’ where the best minds of humanity were busy trying to cure hairloss and increase the length of erections.
@ nala and puliogre
You’re probably right about geography playing into who indian kids tend to associate w/. But unless you don’t have bball courts around i’m willing to bet nearly all indian kids play the sport.
Tennis is probably the most popular sport though–probably to satisfy the sports bit on one’s ivy league app. If parents were really smart they’d point their kids in the direction of lacrosse, where its easier to be all state/all american and where such a distinction almost guarantees admission to an vaunted ivy school
“Again from ignorance, I thought Tendulkar and Ganguly were considered old/past their prime and pretty average at this point? Also I thought Dravid had like his captaincy revoked. Again, apologies for the ignorance.”
well, they are certainly in the twilight of their careers and not the force they once were. however, those who wanted tendulkar to retire after the world cup debacle have had to somewhat eat their words because he was india’s highest run scorer in the recent india-england tour and showed flashes of his old brilliance. even ganguly did better at times than the younger guys. a guy like tendulkar still outfields some of his younger counterparts, whose fielding was shameful and shocking. dravid did not have his captaincy revoked, but there was turmoil and bitter recriminations after the world cup with calls for all the old guard to retire. however, the old guard still got the job done in england. but india’s historic test win and one game loss in the odis nothwithstanding, the standard of fielding is abysmal and some of the younger guys are really going to have to step up more to even achieve half of what the trinity has (tendulkar, dravid, ganguly). yuvraj singh is loaded with talent but throws it away time and time again in between outstanding performances, and he’s been around for awhile now. so many of the younger ones – pathan, balaji, nehra, harbhajan, sehwag, munaf patel have either broken down or lapsed badly after great starts. politics probably plays a part, but there’s still a problem. dravid’s captaincy is still suspect at times – but it’s probably unfair to always second guess his choices — and india’s real test is against the aussies, both at home and in australia later this year. beating england in england is commendable, but australia is still the final frontier right now.
Strong sports programs are, of course, symbolic in a roundabout way of strong military strength, a way of saying, when all is said and done, our men can beat up your men. This might not be a good thing. But a strong sports program, well funded, would decrease the obseity and general sedentary lifestyle of so many Indians. You can create a big program and make it world class in a generation or two – look at Taiwan and baseball, China and basketball. These are worthwhile pursuits.
Thank you WGia.
Re: Physical exertion Try telling that to a GM after a hard fought match.
Re: spectator interest See NASCAR.
Re: Olympic status being given to a certain sport. Boils down to political muscle of its boosters. Bring up Karate (hopefully athletic enough for some of you) v Tae Kwon Do issue and you will see uh, spirited debate.
Camille, When exactly did we claim chess to be a superior activity?
WGiiA, thanks for clarifying. I haven’t watched competitive trampolining, though I have watched speed chess and chess with multiple partners (ah, another sexual segue!). Shodan already pointed out that chess training includes physical training. Still and all, I find it hard to agree that chess involves even remotely the same amount of physical exertion to qualify as a physical sport.
However, to my mind, the psychological dimension to sports success does deserve to be looked at, as an element of any explanation for India’s (and South Asia’s) low medal tally. The genetics, nutrition, etc explanations do not fully convince me.
I was wathcing the track and field world championship’s last week and they just got running the 200 meter relay. One by one I watched the teams cross the finish line, but the team that finished last was way behind, I think the USA team started its interview before the team that finished last cross the line. As I looked a little closer, I shouted “AHHHH DAMNNNN ITTTT!!!” It was India in all its glory.
“Still and all, I find it hard to agree that chess involves even remotely the same amount of physical exertion to qualify as a physical sport.”
true. if vish anand puts on 25 pounds, he’s still far more likely to win a chess match than say a runner. but you yourself made the distinction between sport and physical sport. i guess sport is generally accepted to have a high physical component. but because a sport has a high physical component doesn’t necessarily make it better or more interesting than a recognized sport (which chess is, technically) that has a higher mental than obviously physical component. it’s all very whimsical and subjective. i would certainly take a chess tournament/rugby/football (soccer) over the super bowl and cricket over baseball and basketball/tennis/golf/volleyball over both baseball and american football.
Some very good comments regarding malnutrition, poor infrastructure, genetics, socialization in regards to athletics. Some random thoughts: 1) I would love to see futbol/soccer take hold in India, where it’s a real and viable threat in the popular imagination to cricket. Poor kids all over the world excel in futbol, you don’t need expensive equipment nor do you have to be 6’4″ Syncthian to dominate. In my mind investing (whether by the state or privately) in soccer, has the best “return on investment” in so many ways. 2) What happened to wrestling (real wrestling, not “professional”!) in the subcontinent? India used to be an Eastern powerhouse (dominated by Punjabis) in the sport, along with Turkey and Iran in the 50s and 60s. The World Wrestling championships were even held in Delhi in ’67. I was looking at my uncle’s first editions Indian stamps and accompanying booklets this weekend, issued by the then newly independent Indian Postal Service. Along with a dizzying array of freedom fighters, there was a great stamp commerating the Indian competitive wrestling tradition. 3) China is scary! They’ve only been seriously at it since the last six Olympics. Reminds me of a t-shirt I saw back in the day. This dude was wearing a t-shirt featuring a fictional black ice-hockey team, the back of the shirt said, “just imagine if we actually wanted to play.”
Agreed, Arjun. I don’t think we want to employ the (People’s Republic of) Chinese model, but in the words of my Spanish teacher, many in Deshland needs “a serious attitude adjutsment” about the role of athletics in a balanced life.
Yes. Because I said the opposite:
In case that needs translation, I said that India already has the highest levels of national pride in the world without sports, so does it need sporting success?
Camille, re: desi gals in sports. We’re in two completely different countries it seems, so naturally our experiences among the desi crowd will be different. I can only speak from my own.
No desi scuba divers around then? Most desis dislike watersports I think, all the kids from my generation can swim, but that’s because our law requires it mandatory, since there is simply so much water around. Most of the older folks can’t swim or have had to take special classes once they migrated here.
Most of the Indian kids I knew growing up were far more into ‘black’ subculture and a lot more of them played hoops (how come there are no indian hoops stars?
for the same reason there are no (male) indian porn stars.
Even in the United States, to compete at the level of the Olympics, it takes more than just public support and parental involvement. It also takes a lot of your own money for any of these sports, but especially for the less popular sports that are not played in school. I have known several people who played various sports at the Division I level, which I would imagine is not nearly as demanding as the Olympic-medaling level, and all of their parents had to invest considerable sums of money/live in smaller homes/take on debt/have jobs that let them drive their kids as far as 15 hours away for clinics and competitions. It’s worth it in this country because excelling in sports at that level will almost always guarantee access to higher education and it’s socially acceptable for your kids to spend time focusing on athletics. How many South Asian parents would feel the same way?
i hereby volunteer myself to be a pioneer in this field.
Look, I’m not trying to be a hater, so I hope no one’s taking my outright rejection of chess as sport as a personal attack — it certainly is not meant that way. My statement was in response to the growing number of posts defending chess as something “as tough as” (or equivalent to a) sport. Shodan, it wasn’t that anyone said flat out that chess is superior, but if you’re going to consistently say it is “harder” or that the mental pressure is harder or that it is somehow more exciting than other sports, the tacit argument is that chess is superior. But beyond that, I find it offensive that the other main branch of argument behind “chess is great!” is that desis are predisposed to sucking at physical sports and that they are simultaneously predisposed to rocking at “thinking” games. Not only does that feed a nasty stereotype, it also ignores a lot of the larger issues that could be playing into India’s subpar sports programs.
And, for the record, there have to be some criteria when defining a sport. It is not some touchy-feely definition to make you feel athletic and happy at the end of the day. Being an athlete is hard, physically demanding, emotionally/mentally exhausting, time-consuming work. There are many things that are hard and take mental energy (please see ce blast’s list), but “hardness” does not define what is and what is not a sport. Poker is not a sport, billiards is not a sport, chess is not a sport.
nala, folks did. The malnutrition argument was the predecessor, as I read it, of the “diet & meat” argument re: nutrition.
I understand this point, but part of why sports were adopted into the American admissions system was to “bias” admissions towards academically “underperforming” WASPs. [cite]
Meena, what country are you writing from? 🙂
cause whyte and blk guys (large markets) would rather not watch a “foreign looking guy f-cking grls. they would rather watch the whyte/blk guy hoin nuts on every kind of grl on the planet. “a guy that looks like me getting a lot of…”. This plays into their fantasies. Therefore, you tend to see whyte/blk male prnstrs, and every ethnicity female ones. Dont see why this is applicable to sports though.
The quote about chess and billiards from from an Indian sports journalist 😉 I’m with you though, I think that sports have to be physically demanding. Heck, I barely consider golf a sport.