… 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. Ennis:

    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 😉

    Sorry, too busy following the Rugby World Cup….. and Football World cup qualifiers….

  2. 300!

    Dude, after some of the megathreads lately, does 300 even matter? The next milestone is 2000 (ANNA are you listening? We need one of your threads to get us there).

  3. Dude, after some of the megathreads lately, does 300 even matter? The next milestone is 2000 (ANNA are you listening? We need one of your threads to get us there).

    whatever. posting a comment that says “300!” is cooler than doing my work….

  5. Then we’re saying exactly the same thing. I said just the same in my first post (that comparing chess to physical sports is pointless because they’re not comparable and do not entail comparing similar skill sets). 🙂 For the record, I didn’t say it takes more skill to play basketball. I said it was more physically strenuous to play basketball, and that in doing so one has to be relatively mentally alert as well.

    I think this sums it up…sports and athleticism are about physical attributes like coordination, speed, strength, movement…and of course a strong mental game to maximize the physical inputs or use them the best. Michael Jordan is an athlete because in his prime, he made playing basketball seem like an art…a physical art. He was an artist at being an athlete. Of course there was a mental aspect to what he did. Chess doesn’t seem to fit there. Anyway, I think I am biased against chess on so many levels, because it (or rather playing it, or being good at it, or considering it something worth bragging about in one’s kids) just smacks of the kinds of values and priorities that so many desis have and which I disagree with strongly. I related this anecdote on SM before, but I remember being in Delhi at someone’s house, who went on and on about her chess champion daughter…the kid herself was quiet, shy, awkward, and utterly lacking in social skills. But to her mom, she was ‘chess champion’. Who cares?

  6. Al_chutiya, I’m really skeptical about the Pathan claims made by some of these people…maybe they are Pathan through their paternal lineages (i.e their dad’s dad’s dad’s dad), but I think a lot of mixing with local desis has taken place…because they sure don’t look (on average) the same as pure Pashtu people living in Afghanistan or Pakistan. They don’t look like the typical U.P. village Hindu or local-convert Muslim either, so I’m not denying they have SOME Pathan heritage.

    You scepticism is completely warranted. However, there are pathan tribes in small towns and kasbas in UP where the outmarriage rate is close to zero. They have big enough pathan communities to not go outside their communities for marriage. Some men have outmarried but women for the most part are still married to other pathans. Incidentally, I have been to Karachi and Lahore and the outmarriage rate there in pathan families is similar to the outmarriage rate in Delhi and UP. I am of course talking about people with pathan ancestry but who speak Urdu or Punjabi and have lived outside the frontier province for more than a few generations.

    A lot of people in India/Pakistan of course create phantom pathan origins because it carries social premium in the North Indian Muslim communities. With India now asserting itself as a semi-developed nation and Afghanistan going down the toilet hole, future generations will probably hide their real or imagined Pathan ancestry and emphasize their convert roots.

    Btw, Shah Rukh is dark because his mom was pretty dark (or so I have been told by relatives in Delhi who claim to know the family)

  7. camille, fair enough.:)

    “I related this anecdote on SM before, but I remember being in Delhi at someone’s house, who went on and on about her chess champion daughter…the kid herself was quiet, shy, awkward, and utterly lacking in social skills. But to her mom, she was ‘chess champion’. Who cares?”

    true, but there’s also the opposite. the child who is good at nothing but a sport and whose social skills are obnoxious in that they are overbearing and think they are the be-all and end-all for their physical prowess even though they are brainless twits who couldn’t add two and two together but are held up as role models by society and paid vulgar millions. look at some of the american footballers today. thugs torturing and executing dogs, having nine children with nine different women and refusing to pay child support, physically abusing their wives. yet still some in the nfl and amongst some sports stars (hank aaron included) and commentators find excuses for their behaviour because they are “real athletes.” as you said earlier, some balance is needed. not all chess players are socially awkward and not all “jocks” are mentally deficient.

  8. For American desi athletes, I would bet on baseball!

    Yo risible! You bet right. Growing up in the Bay Area, there was one Bobby Kahlon who was a legend of sorts in the Punjabi community. Piecing together the folklore and speaking to him when I was kid, he was a walk-on pitcher at Cal who could throw in the mid-90’s. He did well and was drafted by the Texas Rangers, played minor league ball for a couple years (single A, I think). Last I heard, he left baseball and went to med school in Europe.

  9. Yo risible! You bet right. Growing up in the Bay Area, there was one Bobby Kahlon who was a legend of sorts in the Punjabi community.

    I’m not going to rest easy till we get a full-blooded Jat playing mid-field in the Premiereship. At this point I’d take a keeper!

  10. Contrary to popular belief, most Indians are not pure vegetarians, though most do not eat beef, there are plenty that eat chicken and especially seafood in the coastal regions.

    I always thought it odd that when you visit a “beach” in India, the only people who are swimming are either foreign tourists or the occasional fisherman. Everyone else just wades in, fully dressed no less, up to their ankles and calves and splashes a bit of water on themselves or their family members/friends. The real daring ones actually sit down and thus get wet up to their waists, again, fully clothed in salwar/kameez, sari, or pants and button down shirt.

    India is not a real sporty country, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

    There are professional atheletes who are raw food vegans and they are doing very well. The body does not require meat to be strong, healthy and atheletic, but it does require proper nutrition which in turn requires awareness of such.

    I find it hard to believe that the average Indian male loses his virginity as early as 19, but come to think of it, since people do tend to marry earlier in rural areas, this may be correct. In towns and cities where people tend to marry in their twenties, the median age would rise, for those who are virgins until marriage that is, which I think is still quite a high number even today.

  11. 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

    Right. The callous indifference to widespread malnutrition and illiteracy stands as proof that 60 years of democracy has failed in India.

    It probably will take one or more of India’s rapidly proliferating billionaires to establish the infratructure for a healthy sports culture in the subcontinent; the governments and bureaucracies are too corrupt and too incompetent. A region with 1300 billion people is bound to have many potentially world class athletes. We can take heart from the fact that a few desis have reached the top echelon in some sports. Gama Pahelwan is ranked as one of the greatest wrestlers of the 20th century. Vijay Singh was ranked #1 in the world in golf for a short time. Leander Paes was ranked #1 in tennis doubles. And so on. The tycoons should identify sports which can give the most bang for the buck: such as weightlifting, martial arts, wrestling, swimming, diving, rowing etc. There are tons of medals in these events. Swimming and diving alone are good for something like a hundred medals and all you need are a few pools. There are parts of south asia in which every village has a pond or a nearby canal and the village youngsters love to swim in them. There is talent here waiting to be discovered. Rowing and martial arts are ancient in India. There are many medals here too.

  12. I’m not going to rest easy till we get a full-blooded Jat playing mid-field in the Premiereship. At this point I’d take a keeper!

    Would you settle for turbaned Singh running up and down the sideline? With a flag? Jarnail Singh, referee!

  13. Oops, its 1300 million or 1.3 billion south asians; not 1300 billion!

    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.

    More likely its because far more indian younsters have access to chess boards than to tennis courts….

    India does perform badly at the Olympics. But to put things in perspective, India has also performed badly in math and science……India routinely gets beaten at the International Mathematics Olympiad, the International Olympiad in Informatics, the ACM ICPC, and most of the International Science Olympiads.

    Its an all round systemic failure.

    The first Indian international superstar sporting hero will be from the diaspora……Michael Chopra? He’s half, looks Italian but I support him.

    Vijay Singh of Fiji is the first world class international sports star from the desi diaspora. He is full not half (I think) and looks it. Why isnt he popular among desis?

  14. “Vijay Singh of Fiji is the first world class international sports star from the desi diaspora. He is full not half (I think) and looks it. Why isnt he popular among desis?”

    he is amongst those that follow golf. but then again, he himself may not be that interested in whether he has indian fans or not or identify with them.

  15. Another factor is India’s “social scene”.

    People “hang out” with their families at home. The big social event is always a cousin’s SHAADI, wedding.

    Sports in the West is a “hang out” thing till you go professional. It’s a way to socialize with friends outside of the family and outside of the house. In general, Indian parents are not really into their kids doing that sort of thing. I think this also accounts for a lack in social skills amongst alot of Indian youth.

    Gender roles are also still closely followed in India. I’ve yet to see a group of girls outside playing cricket in the village field like I do boys.

    Social skills, hanging out, gender roles, dating, sports, etc, they are all inter-connected.

    Gender roles are also still closely followed in India. I’ve yet to see a group of girls outside playing cricket in the village field like I do boys.

  16. I think you can have a healthy productive life, intellectually and physically, without eating meat. However this would require intense levels of diet planning and supplementation, which ordinary people, and particularly poor ordinary people, are not going to invest in. After all, villagers in India have neither the knowledge or resources to analyze, pick and order the correct dietary supplementation. Therefore the simplest, and most sustainable solution, is to encourage dietary improvement through the increased consumption of available animal products.

    It doesn’t require a whole lot of planning. Indians need to become racist about their food and avoid the white stuff; sugar, flour, rice, potatoes. The problem is what was mentioned by someone above, the typical desi veg diet consists of all the white stuff and hardly any other colors. Greens are available in India, as are the wider range of colored veggies like red peppers, sweet yellow/orange potatoes, etc, but Indians eat those is small amounts and the larger portions on their plates are the simple rather than complex carbohydrates. Even in South India and other tropical regions where fruits are growing abundantly, fruits are hardly eaten by the locals. Again it’s white rice and potatoes that they go for, even for breakfast, rather than mangoes, papayas, etc.

  17. Medals at the olympics in mainstream sports (athletics, soccer, swimming, gymnastics) are got by folks who are at least 5 or more standard deviations above the mean in their sport. It seems pretty obvious that genetics has to be THE REASON why india’s tally in these sports is close to zero. Else as many have mentioned why is that not a SINGLE player from Trinidad is of Indian origin? I doubt Indian kids in Trinidad hated soccer. Where are the British Indians or Pakistanis in Britain’s athletic teams? Where are Indian American kids in College athletics? How come there are so many West Indians in soccer and athletic teams in the UK and Canada? They just didnt have the genetic edge to get to the highest levels with the same (or even greater effort) in soccer. Impoverished African nations have soccer superstars.. how come? The answer has to be genetics. India has had organized soccer leagues for many decades. Even if the team is bad (due to say bad management) how come there is not a SINGLE indian playing in the major european leagues (other than that Vikas D)? The genetics explanation has some weight when one notices that half-Indians sometimes do well in these sports (that gal who qualified for the american gymnastics team). It cant be culture alone. My friend has a daughter who is talented in basketball but her physical stature pretty much rules out a place in college level sport. She was born in America, non-veg, training and the rest of it.

    Indians (and Pakistanis) do have reasonable hand-eye coordination that they use to advantage in racket sports (squash, tennis, badminton).. These are precisely the SAME sports that Indian american kids do relatively well (how many Indian kids play college level athletics, basketball, or football) and supreme athleticism is (was) not a must to get into the top 50 (think Ramesh Krishnan who had a very weak serve, limited mobility but actually beat McEnroe once!). So it makes perfect sense for Indian-American kids to specialize in tennis.. Thats about the ONLY mainstream sport they have a chance of doing well (dont count chess, bridge, shooting, archery, and golf).

    My daughter (she absolutely shines in academics and music) tries her game best in sports but struggles to pass SOME of those physical tests, ones involving upper body strength. She asks me how come she struggles so much despite trying her best and training whereas her friends (white) who are not particularly interested in sports breeze through these? Its obviously something do with our genetics. I asked to be satisfied with what she’s good at and not break her head over stuff she cant control. The post from the guy who did weight training also makes sense (all his training and diet did not enable him to outperform the nigerian)

    I think many of the posts here have valid points regarding importance given to sports (lack of) and the lack of a sporting culture. But none of that explains the ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL standing of India (and Indians) in many sporting activities at the level of the Olympics. India is competitive in some sports at the Asian level (say middle distance running, wrestling, some levels of boxing, lifting) but when the field includes the rest of the world, it stands no chance. As one moves to the east of India, the body type is more suited to some sports (say gymnastics) but, even here, the chinese have a much bigger population that has more of these characteristics (hence they really dominate in gymnastics and diving).. So basically, in some literal sense, India is mediocre (in the middle) along various genetic dimensions that matter to most of the sports that are out there.

  18. while genetics is a limiting factor, since certain sports require certain physicalities to be at the top level, the throwing around of genetics seems so inconsistent and the reaction to it just as inconsistent. if you say that african-origin or descent athletes are genetically gifted as athletes, you can be accused of racism (and often it is used in a racist way, as with the williams sisters in tennis. ) that recent intel ad – why was it interpreted as racist instead of flattering that all the runners depicted in it were of african descent due to their genetic superiority in these events? if you say that some groups historically perform better at school than others because of genetics, you can be accused of the same. but if you paint an entire nation of people as genetically unsuitable to sporting success, it’s ok? sometimes reading comments about india and about genetics, perceived sexual inadequacies in the size department, nutrition, diet, you name it – one begins to wonder how it even survived as a civilization for so long:) really, it shouldn’t have ever existed!

  19. 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.

    Testosterone is a sex hormone. Athletics, sports, exercise increases testosterone levels in both men and women. That doesn’t mean that people with low testosterone levels will not have sex, they may have more sex than some people with high testosterone levels, but stamina and other things might be an issue. There is quantity and then there is quality.

    For people desirous of leading a celibate, monastic, yogic lifestyle, moderate exercises like strecthing, walking, light swimming, etc are recommended to keep the body relatively fit while keeping testosterone levels down.

    The more vigourous the exercise, the more the increase in testosterone levels.

    It makes sense that people who do not exercise much will have less testosterone levels than those that do.

  20. there is this interesting article on a british site.. for what it does not say (avoids the politically incorrect conclusion that indians are not cut out for soccer the way blacks and europeans are).. Only 2 Indians, Michael Chopra and Zesh Rahman play in Division 1 Soccer. And it appears that both are 50% White.. That should be telling something.

    — Hundreds of thousands of young Asians are playing and watching the game around the country every weekend.

    But there is a massive under representation of the Asian community in the professional game.

    The facts speak for themselves.

    There are only 5 Asian players in professional football and a recent Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) survey into professional football in 2004 revealed that in total there were only 10 Asian players at Premier League club academies.

    Within the Asian community there continues to be a feeling that Asian players have been marginalised by the game for far too long.

    Popular myths

    Popular myths such as Asians are only interested in Cricket and Hockey, that Asians aren’t strong enough to play the game professionally and that cultural differences will prevent Asian players footballing development are just a few of the common falsehoods that have hampered Asian players’ break through.

    In response, a number of groups have organised themselves to ensure they are providing young talented players from the Asian community with the chance to improve and progress.

    Teams such as London APSA and Sporting Bengal became the first Asian clubs to play in the FA Cup in 2005. Albion Sports Club from Bradford, perhaps Britain’s most successful local Asian Football Club, have reached the nationwide FA Sunday Cup Final twice, and the London Asian Football League continues to grow, attracting teams from all backgrounds. These are just a few examples of how Asians are climbing the football ladder.

    Trailblazers

    While frustrations remain, the love for the game drives on talented young Asians in striving to achieve the goal of joining trailblazers Rehman, Chopra, Singh and Ahmed in the professional game.

    Under representation in other areas of the game is also beginning to be challenged with the successes of Football League referees, Jarnail Singh and Mo Matadar.

    The game recognised the need to ensure that the Asian community is no longer excluded from the game following the launch of the Asians Can Play football report in 2005.

    Football family commitment

    Simon Johnson, The Football Association’s Director of Corporate Affairs, said on behalf of the football family,

    “We want to create more and better coaches from the Asian communities. We want to create clear pathways for the most talented to progress. We want to ensure that, when the Clubs are scouting for players, they are doing so in such a way that they can find the very best talent from the Asian communities.

    “Each of the bodies has a role to play in making all this happen. We know that, and we are taking the necessary action. We also want to see the active fan base at our clubs adapt to reflect the diversity of the communities in which they play.”

  21. By the way, in the 1960s, India ranked pretty high in soccer (i think they made it to the semi-finals of the Olympics…playing bare feet). O.k. no more participation in this thread.

  22. It’s not about genetics, its about effort and Indian’s simply lack the desire to put any effort in anything that involves physical activity.

    Physical activity in India is a sign of being poor and lacking any kind of power, while sitting on your ass and having someone darker then you doing every simple chore for you is a sign of victory.

  23. —

    while genetics is a limiting factor, since certain sports require certain physicalities to be at the top level, the throwing around of genetics seems so inconsistent and the reaction to it just as inconsistent. if you say that african-origin or descent athletes are genetically gifted as athletes, you can be accused of racism (and often it is used in a racist way, as with the williams sisters in tennis. ) that recent intel ad – why was it interpreted as racist instead of flattering that all the runners depicted in it were of african descent due to their genetic superiority in these events? if you say that some groups historically perform better at school than others because of genetics, you can be accused of the same. but if you paint an entire nation of people as genetically unsuitable to sporting success, it’s ok? sometimes reading comments about india and about genetics, perceived sexual inadequacies in the size department, nutrition, diet, you name it – one begins to wonder how it even survived as a civilization for so long:) really, it shouldn’t have ever existed!

    not at all. You win some and you lose some. India is a software superpower (both in terms of stuff happening in India and work by Indians elsewhere) and is on its way to be a tech superpower as well. We are pretty good at certain types of skills that are valued in a tech society. And it doesnt always correlate with IQ. There is a top notch online software suite made out of Chennai (zoho.com) and many of the programmers/architects are hardly the ivy-league/ace scoring types (many of them are from humble no-name colleges). Indian civilization is rich and the Indian peoples are diverse and optimized for many things.. What exactly remains to be found out although its obvious in some areas (software, engineering). Its just that the Indian genes are not particularly well fitted with the demands of olympic gold medal level achievement in most sports.. which is not entirely a bad thing, IMO. But I see a surprising degree of lack of willingness to admit that population groups differ in systematic ways. Whats wrong in being different?

  24. 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.

    That averages to a sample of 8,000 per country which seems pretty good to me (I don’t know how it varies from country to country though).

    I think the %age number is %age of partners whose sexual history you didn’t know – i.e. unprotected sex with a stranger as opposed to unprotected sex with your regular partner.

  25. “Only 2 Indians, Michael Chopra and Zesh Rahman play in Division 1 Soccer. And it appears that both are 50% White.. That should be telling something.”

    there are currently no black players on the England national cricket team and asians outnumber blacks at youth training clubs for cricket etc. does this mean that those of west indian descent are no longer genetically cut out for cricket and have suddenly developed a stronger genetic disposition for soccer/football? are monty panesar, ravi bopara, owais shah etc. genetically superior to this generation of afro-brits? or is it that they no longer have role models like the 1980s west indies cricket team and few west indians of black descent in county cricket to look up to? is it that their role models have changed to mega-rich, mega successful football stars in a country where successful minority faces were at one time invisible? michael chopra may be half white, but does that fully account for his soccer success? there are anglo-indians in india, there have been anglo-indians on the cricket team in the past, but why aren’t there any now? are they genetically inferior to full-blooded indians and lack the natural suppleness of the wrists? would half-white nasser hussain have even made the indian national cricket team? probably not. is it because of one half of his genetics?

  26. Physical activity in India is a sign of being poor and lacking any kind of power, while sitting on your ass and having someone darker then you doing every simple chore for you is a sign of victory.

    Way to go … care to make some more sweeping ,unsubstantiated statements?

    I am sick of this mentality that because India is a 3rd word country ( and not the only one in the world) where people can still afford help at home its okay to say anything that comes to mind if I can call it that.

    So in America: if you are Caucasian,light skinned whatver and have a house cleaning service and your maid is Hispanic : doesn’t that also mean you are” sitting on your ass and having someone darker then you doing every simple chore for you”

    What kind of crappy logic equates lack of success in International sports with having domestic servants?Where did color come into this discussion?What is wrong with you?

  27. “Whats wrong in being different?”

    oh absolutely nothing. i’m all for being different in this dull, globalized world:) i was being a bit tongue-in-cheek with that bit about indian civilization. however, i find it defeatist to assume that you’ve already lost the race out of the starting block because of genetics. then why bother at all? perhaps india shouldn’t waste any resources on sports then? what’s the point of striving for mediocrity? what’s the point of taking into account other limiting factors that perhaps can be changed and improved in the decades to come and then make a judgement?

  28. Incidentally, there are over 400 desi born marathoners in the Bay Area alone. That includes at least 3 Ironmen, and 3 100-mile racers. The last number includes a woman who ran a 100 miler at Houston this year. See 1, 2, and 3.

    Arguably India’s best athlete whom very few know is the magnificent Nattu Natraj who ran Badwater last year as well as this year. The world’s toughest foot race, it begins at Death Valley (140F) and ends at the base of Mt. Whitney – a total distance of 135 miles.

  33. i find it defeatist to assume that you’ve already lost the race out of the starting block because of genetics

    Also absurd. Let’s say the population means are low in the relevant qualities, just for the sake of argument. With a billion people, you can find more than enough people at the very top end of the range of genetic endowments. The question is whether you have a program to identify and train these people like China does. For example, Chinese tend not to be very tall, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a good Olympic basketball team. Out of a billion, you can get one Yao Ming, which is enough to get you the center that you need …

  34. there are currently no black players on the England national cricket team and asians outnumber blacks at youth training clubs for cricket etc. does this mean that those of west indian descent are no longer genetically cut out for cricket and have suddenly developed a stronger genetic disposition for soccer/football? are monty panesar, ravi bopara, owais shah etc. genetically superior to this generation of afro-brits? or is it that they no longer have role models like the 1980s west indies cricket team and few west indians of black descent in county cricket to look up to? is it that their role models have changed to mega-rich, mega successful football stars in a country where successful minority faces were at one time invisible? michael chopra may be half white, but does that fully account for his soccer success? there are anglo-indians in india, there have been anglo-indians on the cricket team in the past, but why aren’t there any now? are they genetically inferior to full-blooded indians and lack the natural suppleness of the wrists? would half-white nasser hussain have even made the indian national cricket team? probably not. is it because of one half of his genetics?

    25% of Professional Soccer players in England are of African Descent. 0.4% are of Asian Descent (not sure what this includes..but it does include Indians and Pakistanis). If this difference isnt due to genetics (at least partially), i think you are seriously deluded. Cricket is an area where Indians can be competitive and sure enough Indians try hard and some do get into the England team. To achieve at the highest levels in some sports, one needs to receive a good draw from genetics. Its not just about effort. Check the best 100m timings.. Almost (maybe all) of them are by people of west african descent. Some sports are multidimensional.. soccer being one of them.. and people of varied body types can get to the top.. So it is obvious that the 0.4% can be improved on.. but will it ever even approach 10%? Cricket is even more multidimensional.. Hence all sorts can make it (from the 6’6″ fast bowlers to the 5′ opening bats) .

  35. This thread has gone from the sublime( promises of virgins) to the ridiculous ( using domestic servants )

    If I had said half the racist stuff here about any other group of people ,I would have been shouted out long ago. But I guess because we are desis its okay to rag on India and Indians for everything from inferior genetics to inferior attitudes( “these des based desis, so backward you know because they only have unprotected sex with 2.5 partners – how can they ever play football?”) to inferior cusine to ( add your own here)

    Yes, I’m pissed.Please, do continue perpetuating negative stereotypes.I am out of this thread.

  36. vic @280 – Some may hate me for saying this but our genetics also probably plays a part in our getting left behind.

    This is more true than false. Indians are physically inferior and Blacks are physically superior. There I said it 🙂
    Ethiopia and Sudan are not exactly bastions of wealth. They seem to produce athletes. No infrastructure is needed for long distance running. Something that should be possible even in the villages of India. Pity about wrestling. Till the 80’s India had decent wrestlers.
    I dont think India will be a major sporting power for another 6 generations.

  37. i’m not sure why you found my comment absurd, since i’m not saying that you can’t find enough top-level people in india to compete in certain sports given the right infrastructure, training, cultural attitudes etc ( a point i made in my first comment on this topic). what i find defeatist is this idea that indians are somehow genetically inferior and that this explains everything or even mostly everything. most indians don’t even have experience with the majority of these sports and the indian team that goes to the olympics competes in a very limited number of sports.

  38. i’m not sure why you found my comment absurd

    Not your comment absurd, I agreed with you that the premise of genetic inferiority was absurd. Sorry, still at the office, hence the terse comments.

  39. Quizman

    the ultra-events depend more on training it appears.. they are not olympic sports.. indians hold all sorts of records for feats of physical endurance (see guinness). but last I checked, they are not on the olympics menu. maybe we should get these recognized.

  40. India does perform badly at the Olympics. But to put things in perspective, India has also performed badly in math and science……India routinely gets beaten at the International Mathematics Olympiad, the International Olympiad in Informatics, the ACM ICPC, and most of the International Science Olympiads.
    Its an all round systemic failure.

    Indian performance in the Math Olympiads and such is nowhere near as bad as it is in the olympics. India may not be rooling the roost, but given its school systems and such, its not too bad, although recently, it has supposedly been not as good as it used to be. Being within the top 20 list or so maybe not a great thing for a country like India, but its not in the same class as the olympic failure. http://www.isid.ac.in/~rbb/indpart.html

    I think the performance is equally good, or even better in the IPhO.

  42. —

    Also absurd. Let’s say the population means are low in the relevant qualities, just for the sake of argument. With a billion people, you can find more than enough people at the very top end of the range of genetic endowments. The question is whether you have a program to identify and train these people like China does. For example, Chinese tend not to be very tall, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a good Olympic basketball team. Out of a billion, you can get one Yao Ming, which is enough to get you the center that you need …

    the chinese do have a well developed methods for identifying these outliers… but its just not a matter of numbers.. There may be no Yao Mings in India, no matter how hard you look. Same goes for gymnastics, diving etc. India does outperform china in some sports (wrestling, hockey, boxing, mens middle distance running maybe) but isnt world class in any of them (yet). India was pretty good at Volleyball (theres a sport we can do better) but this sport has been neglected I think. As for soccer, yes we were competitive in Asia in the 50s but the game has changed quite a bit since then.At best we can compete with the better Asian sides.. I dont see a top 50 Indian soccer team in the next 100 years (unless players migrate and play for Rupees, like the USA which has benefited from all sorts of talent)

  43. There may be no Yao Mings in India, no matter how hard you look

    That’s very unlikely. Height is normally distributed. With a large enough population you can get far enough out on the tails to find a Yao Ming if you look hard enough.

  44. A couple of days Murali wanted me to substantiate that SM allows certain ‘truths’ to be discussed but not others. This thread is a classic example. Genetic physical inferiority of Indians and physical superiority of other races can be discussed in a mostly sane fashion. I wonder if we can have a discussion about the genetic mental inferiority of certain races without certain commenters having a dummy spit.

  45. “25% of Professional Soccer players in England are of African Descent. 0.4% are of Asian Descent (not sure what this includes..but it does include Indians and Pakistanis). If this difference isnt due to genetics (at least partially), i think you are seriously deluded. Cricket is an area where Indians can be competitive and sure enough Indians try hard and some do get into the England team. To achieve at the highest levels in some sports, one needs to receive a good draw from genetics. Its not just about effort. Check the best 100m timings.. Almost (maybe all) of them are by people of west african descent. Some sports are multidimensional.. soccer being one of them.. and people of varied body types can get to the top.. So it is obvious that the 0.4% can be improved on.. but will it ever even approach 10%? Cricket is even more multidimensional.. Hence all sorts can make it (from the 6’6″ fast bowlers to the 5′ opening bats”

    nothing i’ve said disputes any of that. i’m not denying that genetics plays a part in natural talent for a certain sport and for certain populations like kenyans and ethiopians. but i bet you could identify similar populations in india who could become good long distance runners because of geography, body shape etc.. similarly, some people are just more genetically blessed in the brain department. but in sports and acaedemics, it also only gets you so far. i still think soccer is a sport where asians aren’t necessarily genetically hindered. unlike maybe the 100m – but then China has a 100 m world class runner/also hurdler and sri lanka has susanthika jayasinghe. maybe they won’t beat some of their afro-counterparts, but they certainly have the potential to reach that level in the first place. my point is that saying some indians are probably not genetically suited (or not yet suited) to dominating some sports is fair enough, but saying a nation of such diversity is genetically not suited to sporting success is another.

  46. “Genetic physical inferiority of Indians and physical superiority of other races can be discussed in a mostly sane fashion. I wonder if we can have a discussion about the genetic mental inferiority of certain races without certain commenters having a dummy spit.”

    exactly. genetics is not irrelevant, but its application and the reaction to its application as an explanation for certaing phenomena is inconsistent.

  47. to Sigh – India came fourth in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics playing with bare feet.

    Now this may seem strange to many non DBDs but the largest medal winning contingents in Indian Atheltic Games were Services (Defence forces) Kerala, Punjab and Railways.

  48. Genetic physical inferiority of Indians and physical superiority of other races can be discussed in a mostly sane fashion. I wonder if we can have a discussion about the genetic mental inferiority of certain races without certain commenters having a dummy spit.

    No, that’s largely my fault. I’ve only been able to keep half an eye on this thread and so haven’t noticed anything since I’ve largely been scanning it for obscenity. I probably should have objected to broad racial stereotypes as well.

    That said, it’s one thing to say that the average Indian is shorter than the average Dutchman. It’s obviously true, but doesn’t imply anything moral about these groups. OTOH, if you were to tell me that the average Indian isn’t as smart as the average Dutchman I would object that such a statement isn’t true, and is quite pejorative.

  49. Ever see Mallus from fishing communities in the water ? Amazing swimmers by necessity. No doubt that with the proper nutrition and training facilities, the 6 footers (not so rare these days)among them can definitely do well internationally.

  50. “Not your comment absurd, I agreed with you that the premise of genetic inferiority was absurd. Sorry, still at the office, hence the terse comments.”

    oh, ok. i, too, misread your response.