Country 1 United States 39 41 33 113 2 China 38 32 18 88 48 India 1 2 4 7 USA and China are ranked 1 and 2 in the Medals Tally at the olympics. China has pointed out how many medals ROC [Taiwan] has won, and the USA recognizes the "one China" in the world. That makes China the top metal winner in the world. What makes India so pathetic in comparison has a lot of dimensions to discuss. However, I think "food security" might be on top. The affluent suffer obesity [ cannot move without effort], while the poor suffer from lack of food. Something to think about on the Independence Day in 2021.
This thread is in neighborhood >>India >>Karnataka . Any particular reason to place it here? Any connection it has with the thread content? Coming to the thread : I thought US had more obese population than India . Not sure about this. But the reasons for our less medal count may not be what you have mentioned. Few I can think of is : 1) Corruption in the country 2) no sports infrastructure 3) sports is not seen as a career in india(other than cricket) 4) sports persons are not rewarded handsomely Pic attached illustrates one reason which I have mentioned in point number 3 .
Except for maybe cricket sports has not been held in high esteem in India. I still remember my grandparents shouting at us to study instead of play. Organized sports were only reserved for rich people back in my day. When I wanted to play tennis in school we found out we could not afford even a racquet leave alone the lessons. I think sports should be encouraged for everyone in India but excessively focusing on winning Olympic medals while not paying attention to basics also seems hollow in a poor country.
Countries that are smaller in landmass, population and natural resources than Karnataka, have better overall health, well-being and achievements in sports. Olympics is about nationalism and pride. Nationalism gets dented when a multinational conglomerate with internecine sniping is also added to the mix of all the other issues -- poor country, sports is low priority in survival, administrative malaise, etc. etc. We often compare india and china. And then sigh, and concede that there is an economic cost to the freedoms that are absent in china, and leave it at that. However, smaller countries, like Taiwan, doing better in health outcomes, and yet sustain a noisy, argumentative, democratic scheme of government should point to lessons for India. Should India be many Taiwan-sized countries [we already have them in the form of linguistic states ]? The general improvement in the economy during the last 30 years, has put more money in control of the people so that they can enjoy IPL cricket and to some extent the soccer league as well. And wealthy people see profits in owning teams. Baby Bachchan owns the soccer team in Chennai, and occasionally shows up in the stands for games too. The ticket sale is made feasible by all those engineers who make decent money in the software industry, so as to have disposable income to enjoy sports-entertainment. Lots more pear-shaped engineers who might get winded walking up to their seats in the gallery of a stadium, would end up developing local sports talents to entertain them. Olympic games come around and remind us that progress is so annoyingly slow.
