India’s won only three medals in the Beijing Olympics 2008, but our media is painting the town red with celebrations that a new India has emerged in sports. Rubbish!
The only remarkable thing about the whole show was that India despite a population exceeding a billion with around half of them under the age of 25, managed to give its usual measly performance this time around and our media consoled itself by glorifying the few winners, who made it despite the odds against them. Poverty, lack of political will, malnutrition, poor infrastructure, lack of sponsorship (only cricket and horse racing seem to fare well monetarily), equipment, corruption, lack of organization, social immobility….the list is endless as to what’s wrong with India in the Olympics.
And take a look at the winners – Abhinav Bindra, 25 from Chandigarh, won a gold in the 10-meter air rifle competition, Vijender Kumar, 23, a bus driver’s son from a village about 80 miles from here, won a bronze in boxing and Sushil Kumar, 24, who learnt to wrestle in the dirt on the outskirts of Delhi, also won a bronze. All of them, unlike the other Olympic champions – did not train wearing Nike shoes, in AC gyms or in a place remotely resembling a Olympian launch pad.
But as fellow-blogger, god of 86 says, by Indian standards this has been an extremely productive Olympics.
According to several statistics, India is the country in the world with the lowest number of total Olympic medals per capita. Year after year large countries – Russia, US and China, dominate the Olympic Games medal ranks.
In 2000, India came last but second in the 82 countries that participated. This table shows the number of Olympic medals won per million inhabitants in the Sydney Olympic Games 2000.
| 75 | Sri Lanka | 0.05 | 1 | 19,238,575 |
| 76 | Thailand | 0.05 | 3 | 61,230,874 |
| 77 | China | 0.05 | 59 | 1,261,832,482 |
| 78 | Indonesia | 0.03 | 6 | 224,784,210 |
| 79 | Colombia | 0.03 | 1 | 39,685,655 |
| 80 | Nigeria | 0.02 | 3 | 123,337,822 |
| 81 | Vietnam | 0.01 | 1 | 78,773,873 |
| 82 | India | 0.00 | 1 | 1,014,003,817 |
Which is the most successful Olympic Nation ? Definitely not India.
Another informal statistics, shows India at bottom place
| 122 | 118 | 118 |  |
Vietnam | 80 | 08 | 2 | 87375 | 6.528 | 0.04 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 123 | 117 | 117 |  |
Iraq | 48 | 08 | 1 | 28993 | 10.452 | 0.03 |
| 124 |  |
Sudan | 60 | 08 | 1 | 39379 | 9.178 | 0.03 | ||
| 125 | 119 | 119 |  |
India | 48 | 08 | 15 | 1129866 | 10.452 | 0.01 |
Spinnin' a yarn 