Aug

8

Top 10 reasons India sucks at the Olympics

August 8, 2008 posted by indiatime |

Yesterday, Tim Sullivan, an Associated Press writer, wrote a stinging article about India’s decades of mediocrity at the Olympic arena. And surprizingly, for a non-Indian analyst, he hit the nail on the head when he offered the most likely explanation of India’s Olympic debacle - “…The most likely explanation seems to be that India has paid little attention to sports other than cricket, and given those sports almost no funding…”.

Here are my 10 guesses as to why India, the mighty superpower-to-be of this century, is more like a teeny-weeny micro-power, when it comes to Olympic sports.

1. History -For the entire first half of the modern Olympic history that started in 1896, India was a British colony where life as an athlete was the last thing on most people’s minds. Even today, that British influence refuses to wear off, leaving its mark in the form of the British game of Cricket, a sport that has virtually destroyed any hope of any other sport gaining any traction in India.

2. Cricket -In India, Cricket hogs more coverage, more money, more political influence, and more time of people’s lives than all other sports combined. Generations of talented athletes have been ignored, left in poverty, forgotten by the state, and just left to rot, thanks to the Cricket brats who enjoy millions and give back zilch to the sporting world in return. Even this year, India’s highest honor in sports went to a Cricketer, extinguishing any hopes and aspirations of future track and field stars who might have been dreaming to be future Olympians.

3. Politics -Just as it corrupts everything else in this country, politics and the masters who practise it, have held most Indian sports hostage, by stifling funding, meddling with selection processes, and influencing sports awards. The head of India’s Olympic contingent is a career politician, and so is the head of India’s Cricket board. Personally and financially, it is a great achievement for them both. For the athletes who represent those sports, it is nothing less than a nightmare and a shame.

4. Bollywood -Bollywood is one of the strongest influencers of India’s public life. More than 99% of the movie scripts that come out of Bollywood deal with girl meets boy stories that are decorated with stupid dances and silly romantic songs which make for a great 3-hour escape, but also help people look the other way where people need to face reality. Over a 100 years, Bollywood has made probably less than 5 notable movies about sports.

5. Education system -India’s education system discourages sports and athleticism. Most youngsters interested in sports activities tend to quit early and join either medicine or engineering fields to be viable in the competitive job markets. The school-level sports seldom produce record-breaking performances, and there aren’t any proper scouting programs that can hunt good athletes out and groom them.

6. Generalized neglect and apathy and idiocy-Most Indians did not and probably still do not know the Indian who, for decades, was the only Indian to have won an individual medal at the Olympics. As against that, most Indians know, by heart, every name on India’s cricketing roaster for last 50 years. Khashaba Jadhav won India’s first wrestling honor at the 1952 games, but was forgotten for years, just like that. Just like that. And that year and the next and the next and for many thereafter, India’s cricketers had their asses kicked by every other Cricketing team on the planet, and they were our national heroes.

7. Generalized lack of national pride -Olympics is a time of pride for nations that excel at the games and a time of shame for those who suck at it. Indians have taken themselves out of contention even before participating. Even this year, as he left for Beijing, the president of India’s Olympic contingent told the press not to expect much from the Indian contingent.

8. All action, no talk -That’s what the Olympics are all about. But that’s completely contrary to our philosophy of life which is all talk and little action. If there ever were an Olympics for oratory, demagoguery, and eloquence, Indians would bring home all the medals. But sports is action and that’s a problem (even our action heroes talk more and act less).

9. Scriptures -We are into metaphysical Olympics, not physical Olympics. Our scriptures tell us that our bodies are just temporary mediums for our souls. So why exercise something that is not going to be around in a few years? Why not, instead, exercise the soul, and the mind? Oh, you want to run faster than me? By all means, my child. But what are you running from?

10. Actually, most Indians really do not give a rat’s ass as to which country won how many medals at the games. Most of us will enjoy the Chinese firecrackers, ogle at the female gymnasts, cheer for the dwindling number of Indians still in contention, and in a few weeks, will get back to the more philosophical and more metaphysical aspects of living.


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40 Comments so far

  1. yogesh on August 8, 2008 7:32 pm

    You have some very strong opinions. I appreciate that and admire that you have been quiet blunt in all your posts. But who are you? It would be easy for a reader to understand where you come from rather than just read your comments. As a billion nation all of us certainly have lots of opinions and few channels to express them. So your hiding does not help your readers.

  2. Sam on August 8, 2008 8:09 pm

    Yes.. I agree.. CRICKET should be banned in India.

  3. Naveen on August 9, 2008 12:52 pm

    Yogesh, tt does not matter who is it that said them…what matters is the CONTENT. Just an ordinary pissed-off citizen of India.
    The core value of any organization or any individual or nation should be a constant endeavor to improve to perfection. The major fault with us is that we adjust ourselves to everything. We don’t perfect. We want to benefit ourselves but we’re not willing to strive with strong passion to cultivate and perfect.

  4. Harry Patel on August 9, 2008 8:10 pm

    your right man but i actually give a rat’s ass about which country won how many medals

    yes im indian

    a country with over a billion people sucks ass in the Olympics

    come on

    the Chinese on average are smaller and physically weaker than indians and they are rocking our asses in the Olympics…great that shows how much of superpower we will be right?

  5. Pinty on August 10, 2008 10:38 am

    Very True. Its same that India is struggling to get a single medal. China rocks in Olympics.

  6. a on August 11, 2008 9:59 am

    i think you pakis should stick to eating curry and put paki dots on your foreheads, hahaha. ‘

    A nation of worthless brown shit.

  7. Adit on August 11, 2008 10:01 am

    At the end of my second reading of your brillant itemization, I was clouded in shame and despair.

    This is so true!

    Hope the public opinion now sways in a way that the multi nationals sponsoring cricket turn thier interest to Hockey, athletics, etc etc . The sense of pride has to be revived or atleast instilled in most cases..
    Govt and schools sud give incentive to sports and so sud private companies.
    Every MLA, MP sud pass a phsyical and medical test .. that wud take care of 90% of the garbage and get the right attention..

    …
    ..
    .

  8. John Parry on August 11, 2008 10:01 am

    the Chinese on average are smaller and physically weaker than indians and they are rocking our asses in the Olympics…great that shows how much of superpower we will be right?
    ———————————————

    I doubt the Chinese are smaller than you guys, you guys are actually some of the tiniest and skinniest people I have seen. Maybe it’s your diet.

    The Chinese athletes are just so much better trained than you. Same amount of population yet so much more talented.

  9. Adit on August 11, 2008 10:07 am

    This ‘a’ guy is completely messed up. he gets the gold for being a illitrate and a racist.

    what a loser!!

  10. ranjit on August 11, 2008 1:03 pm

    When was the last time you went out for a run?
    To stuck to your keyboard?
    Frankly it was a waste of my 1.5 mins reading your blog, therefore it must be a waste of time writing this. But still your nonsense about our scriptures angers me.
    The directions in our ancient texts to keep body your in a good condition and glorifying the Fittest, strongest and fastest are may.
    So do not criticise what you dont understand.
    PS: Yoga is not exactly your average slouchers hobby is it?

  11. shreerang on August 11, 2008 5:50 pm

    Hey guys, can’t you see this person is kidding about some of these things? And anyway, what is the point of false pride? It is true that we suck at Olympics games.

  12. nilesh on August 12, 2008 3:37 am

    I love your article. Its very well written and you go to the exact points as to why India sucks at Olympics (and pretty much everything else). Ok, we invented numbers, math, philospophy, ancient medicine, drainage systems before anyone else, yet we lack proper education in any of these in today’s Mugging-Tuition oriented Indian schools.

    Educational content is one thing. Educational quality is another thing. We have so much content that kids are left without time to balance their lives in sports, etc. while countries like America pay equal attention to academia and sports and see what they have - high technology (including sports nutrition technology) combined with scientists engineers who walk the talk - i.e. they don’t just read books about theme park or bridge design, they actually implement it.

    WALK THE TALK is right!! That’s why we can hardly win a medal at the olympics (except for this one guy, who is a shooter).

    Btw I LOATHE cricket!

  13. Constance Walker-Carter, M.S. on August 12, 2008 8:10 pm

    This is, by far, the best READ I’ve had in a long time; perhaps, in my lifetime. My favorite headline…Top 10 reasons India Sucks at the Olympics!

  14. JYD on August 18, 2008 7:05 am

    Hullo, my friends from India, do you not think that India needs to have a cultural revolution?

  15. nilesh on August 19, 2008 7:59 am

    Yes, India needs a cultural revolution big time! I am not saying to blindly imitate western culture (after all the west learnt quite a few things from us: language, math, philosophy, etc as I mentioned).

    However, if we look at our Asian neighbors Japan, S.Korea and esp China, you can see how fast they progressed while Indian progress, whilst our false pride about minor achievements, is nothing to write home about.

    Beijing is a beautiful city - I have been there - its world class, unlike Delhi, Bangalore or Mumbai which has tiny islands of great advancement and vast expanses of dirty areas including slums, widespread poverty and dirt shops, not to mention the all-indian pollution-mobile: autorickshaw. Indian traffic is so distinctive from our Asian neighbors: unnecessary honking, old prehistoric vehicles which belch out volcanoes of smoke, extremely poor noise shielding leading to heavy noise pollution. our roads are a joke for the most part: no proper highways, interstates (NH 47 for eg: is a 2 lane, bidirectional highway: lol!!), nobody follows traffic rules (indisiciple everywhere such as overriding white lines, etc). The political and judiciary systems in India are highly inefficient at their duties and the rotten politicians that infest it are only good for raping our tax rupees.

    We need a strong, highly disciplined cultural revolution that has happened among our Asian neighbors, and as far as infrastructure is concerned, even our Persian Gulf neighbors in the middle-east. Look at Dubai, Qatar, etc all they have is oil, yet the infrastructure is so well developed. We have oil, resources, brain power, education, yet look at the state of our nation. Listen to New Order’s song ‘State of the Nation’ and you will agree!!

    Time for change is important. But pace (speed) is even more important. Indians are known world over for being slackers. That’s why more than 50 years after our independence, we haven’t cleaned up our country so that its ‘class’ matches other developed or 2nd world nations.

    TIME IS NOW FOR CHANGE! QUICK CHANGE!

  16. blade on August 20, 2008 4:57 am

    India needs a military hardcore dictatorship. It needs that so it can destroy the lazy worthless corrupt people and promote the good people.

    India cannot fix its sanitation problems at all. They are freaking sewage canals running in the middle of the towns. Even the large super cities have women cleaning shit with their bare hands. WTF!!!! Thats no superpower, but a shitpower!!

    So India has no chance at ever winning gold like China does in an olympics or even hosting an olympics(delhi bidded for 2020) ever!!!

    India needs a hard core dictator that can truly force people to change their ways or eliminate them if they refuse. Thats what China did, and that is what India will have to do.

  17. mac on August 21, 2008 9:36 am

    Great article… I was actually surprised to find this. As I was looking at the official medal count I did some quick math and thought…ok China, a billion people, doing well…. India, a billion people, and only two medals. But what I am most shocked about is that India has not excelled in one sport. Not rowing, nor fencing, not badminton. Nothing… a billion people and nothing. How come… i offer my sympathy.

    I am a white American and the greatest gift I had growing up here was the chance to excel at a sport. Once I realized i was not cut out… I focused on my studies.

    What is missing in India is choice. Start building some YMCA-like facilities. Cmon… there must be some great athletes just ready to bust out.

  18. nilesh on August 22, 2008 10:28 pm

    hey i TOTALLY AGREE with military dictatorship, i was thinking the same thing! lol! indians tend to be like indisciplined little kids so a military dictatorship would be good. like in bahrain or UAE, they have monarchy: the kings make sure the country gets developed or political prisoners will get tortured in prison. i am all for human rights, but for complete disregard of cleanliness, progress or quality-focus, this is the only way. SO I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY SUPPORT MILITARY DICTATORSHIP IN INDIA!

    also, mac, i don’t like using the term ‘white’, because that makes it look like european-americans have no culture. i’d rather think you are a european-american!! lol
    that is one of the few things america has to correct: addressing people like ‘white black hispanic, etc’.

    but i agree with you, i was in USA, and i know people there love either sports or junk food. and the ones that do love sport are dedicated with routines and nutrition. sports nutrition is virtually absent in india. the best indian athletes get is ‘BOOST’ or ‘HORLICKS’ which are energy drinks with vitamins and minerals but don’t have the amino-acid profile of protein powders. also, indians don’t know much about ’skim milk’ ‘low fat’ etc. most of the food here is fried, and milk is whole milk (high in saturated fat). people have false beliefs that ‘meat is fat’…i tell them there are lean meats and fatty meats. and a puri bhaji has more calories from fat than a tandoori whole chicken.

    i know this indian olympic athlete who went to USA to compete at a marathon and many average middle-aged american women overtook him lol!

    india needs a cultural revolution, and hopefully it will make india like new.

  19. Srinivas iyer on August 27, 2008 5:14 am

    WOW!!! Love what you have said and whole heartedly agree. But too bad, I can’t do anything about it.

  20. harry on August 30, 2008 4:10 am

    I doubt the Chinese are smaller than you guys, you guys are actually some of the tiniest and skinniest people I have seen. Maybe it’s your diet.

    The Chinese athletes are just so much better trained than you. Same amount of population yet so much more talented.
    ——————————————

    hahhaha LOL chinese on average are 3 inches shorter than indians and much less meat and fat

    i just recently discovered that indians are not usually encouraged to play sports

    but look in USA

    we have an indian badminton player who is punjabi

    and a Gujarati Gymnastic medal winner Raj Bhavsar

    LOL fuck alll the haters you sons of bitches

  21. kenny on October 19, 2008 1:45 pm

    Harry I think the Chinese have “less meat and fat” because they exercise more and have good diet. I realise a lot of my Indian friends, both male and female, have massive hips (about 1 1/2 times the average hips). Massive asses those. Think that is somewhat affecting their performance in sports. :)

  22. George on November 22, 2008 1:17 pm

    I agree that cricket is the main reason for India’s stagnant sports and athletic programs(not TV).
    that is if such programs even exist.
    There is a lot of money being pumped into cricket and the number of endorsements these players get is unbelievable.
    Although I do have to say that Indian Youth athletes have a lot of potential. The only hing holding them back is our very own mentality. No one wants to play for the country because it is impossible to live a life on sports if you are an Indian citizen and if that sport is not cricket. Everyone gives up their sporting talents in the pursuit of engineering degrees and other professions.
    If India ever wishes to make a global impact on the world sports arena then it needs to start paying athletes reasonable amounts of money (at least enough to live a comfortable life). The plight of soccer players in India is appalling. The plight of the hockey players is even worse as the interest in the sport is dwindling and soon no one will ever play hockey for the country and we will lose another great sport for which India is well known.

  23. lpg on December 1, 2008 3:41 pm

    thnks

  24. tim on December 3, 2008 9:37 pm

    guys indians are atleast good in cricket………..y cant u guys stop talking about cricket in india……i agree with u about the education system also.in a country with 1.1 billion people i dont its hard to find some talented guys and grls who can involve in different sport….china rocks but still USA is better than any country not only in sports…..

  25. tim on December 3, 2008 9:41 pm

    also indians are hairier than anyone in the world……evn girls…..i feel bad for tose girls

  26. why on December 20, 2008 9:27 pm

    Indians are the smelliest people in the world.

    Reason is because they eat curry.

    Curry is the smelliest and the dirtiest foods in the world.

  27. hahaha on December 20, 2008 9:28 pm

    Also, Indians.

    They are the smelliest people in the world.

    Indians almost never take shower, so that’s why they smell so horrible.

    They are the stinkiest people in the world

  28. hahaha on December 20, 2008 9:28 pm

    Also, Indians.

    They are the smelliest people in the world.

    Indians almost never take shower, so that’s why they smell so horrible.

    They are the stinkiest people in the world

  29. Subhash Mahajan on December 23, 2008 7:10 am

    An initiative at SUMPOORNA campus has begun which is a grass root revolution in sports. The process needs to be done in every town of India for it to succeed.

    Your article addresses the core issues. BUT WHO WILL BELL THE CAT?

  30. hilarious on January 4, 2009 10:46 pm

    this article was a classic! truly classic!
    i agree with all these commens
    indians smell like curry, they eat too much meat yet they are the skinniest and weakest ppl ive ever seen, they suck at sports, they care only about picking up a woman and they will not have a cultural revolution the way things are going.
    look at china and how much they’ve developed!
    smart ppl i tell ya, indians, got the brains but dont know how to put it to use

  31. Jaguar on January 7, 2009 7:37 am

    Interesting to read the comments…actually i used to be a wannabe athelete and excelled in sports but could not take it as a career option becoz of social compulsions and mainly there were no oppurtunities.As far as saying that Indians dont play any other sport other than cricket is not true. Ive been amongst some great long distance runners,sprinters table tennis players, basketball even and not to forget soccer, some really great talents. All of them today are doing some kind of business, are engineers, doctors, accountants so on just becoz they couldnt progress further through lack of oppurtunity. Exposure is very important for young talent and they should be encouraged. As for all the cheap and disgusting comments about Indians I came across here… up yours!!

  32. henry on February 28, 2009 11:13 am

    fucking indians the worse race in the world lol they suck at everything they also look like mutants

  33. indianpower on March 3, 2009 7:42 am

    Henry,

    what a piece of shit. whatever race you are, i have seen mutants from all those races as well.

    there are many good looking indians. many indians look like ‘mutants’ because of poor nutrition (lack of protein) and exercise/fitness.

    but any indian who looks after his body and health looks 10X better than you or your hillbilly breed with freckles, melanoma, etc.

    blue eyes and white skin are actually genetic mutations of the real african DNA. do a research, you mutant.

  34. Eric on March 17, 2009 6:53 am

    hahhaha LOL chinese on average are 3 inches shorter than indians and much less meat and fat

    ——————————————-

    Check your fact: you can google it rather easily, average height of urban indian men is only about 164 cm. Chinese(urban) is about 172 cm. The data is from a study that was posted in Indiatimes. Funny people some indian are.

  35. Necromage9 on March 18, 2009 7:27 am

    It’s the diet. The majority of the Indian population is vegetarian and most of them dont eat the required amount of vegetables to match up with a meat based diet. Hence the lack of essential nutrients and animal proteins result in a physically less well-off people when compared to the meat eating world.

  36. tom on March 26, 2009 7:13 am

    im indian and im 13 i think indians are a bunch of nerds

  37. Oth on March 27, 2009 7:10 am

    Dude… that could not be more true, its pretty much the same with Pakistan

    KUDOS for whoever wrote this

  38. umair on March 27, 2009 5:25 pm

    india sucks the most they r asshole
    they r motherfuckers

  39. ciscokid on May 8, 2009 10:38 pm

    The only thing worse than Indian criket…is Indian sports in general.
    For a country of 1 Billion people to only get 3 medals in the 2008 olympics is really pathetic. Even the tiny island of Jamaica got 11 medals and of course lets not forget China who got 100 medals. But at least India improved from its 1 single medal in 2004…ha ha ha. Of course what is really sad is that their beloved cricket has NOT dominated the world in any way in the last 40 years, in World Cup you have only won 1 and came runner up 1 time since 1975. So some advise…start giving some energy to other sports. This will expand your athletic footprint and remove some of the pressure from your criket players, then maybe you can win at something. And at the very least it will stop driving visitors crazy only hearing about cricket and only cricket every damn day.
    Ohh and India is still the dirtiest, smelliest and most corupt country I have ever been in.

  40. shutup on June 17, 2009 4:26 am

    You know what all of you racist bastards jst shut the fuck up. Umair im guessing your probably paki and thats why your being so racist. You know what stfu you gay paki, its people like you that give pakistan a bad name in India my best friends paki and he’s not a racist whore like you. First of all you think pakis so good? Its been proven that overall India is cleaner then pakistan richer and developing a whole lot faster then Pakistan. Also does Pakistan have a 7 wonder in it? No so stfu because the Taj Mahal in India is ranked the no. 1 7 wonder I don’t see any of your mosques in it. Also Americans who say India is dirty what happened to your beloved statue of liberty it’s not in the list. India has better architecture then America overall. Also Umair heard of Sanjaya? He’s Indian and he placed no. 7 on American Idol I dont see a lousy Pakistani on American Idol. So Umair before you go dissing Indians think about your own country because its the trashiest country on earth and comes second to India in academics,sports,buildings,anything at all.

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