1 Billion people 1 silver medal-India at Olympics
India at Olympics
1 Billion people,1 silver medal – is’nt it sounds Disgraceful for we Indians and for our country…???India has the world’s second-largest population (almost 1/6th of the global population) and it is ninth largest economy. It is the biggest democracy in existence. But, why does India, despite a population of over one billion People , lack behind in the race of Olympic Glory? India has managed to put a man in space, led many scientific discoveries , forced the world to acknowledge India’s stride in the field of defence and science & technology. Indian cricket team is considered to be one of the World’s best team , then why are we not able to bring the same dedication and integrity to sports in general and the Olympic Games in particular? In fact, and ironically, being the second most populous and most democratic country in the world hinders our attempts to harvest a rich haul of medals at the Olympics.
“Why does India at olympics won so few medals” — Every self-respecting Indian knows that India’s strike rate at the Olympics has been less than encouraging. India has won just 0.16% of the 12,796 medals awarded in the last 116 years. Disappointing it might sound but the fact is if you rank countries by the total number of Olympic medals they’ve ever won, India ranks 55th in the world, even though India has participated in twice as many Olympic games as either country. Other developing countries besides India have managed to do quite well at the Olympics. China , which every Indian knows won the most gold medals at the 2008 Beijing games.Though China also has a skyrocketing population , which is very much close to INDIA ,then why the hell can’t we get 17 gold’s like China?
Now to explain Olympic medal deficiency, there are multiple reasons that could be taken under consideration. Some of them are as follows:
- Sports was never taken as a priority for a majority of Indians.
- Sports is treated as hobby and not as a career in our country, hence very small percentage of the population is willing to devote their life to athletics. No sports apart from Cricket is taken seriously and passionately in our country.
- Corruption – India has many talented persons but few come in picture because of lack of encouragement. We as a nation are corrupt to the core , Corruption in sports ensures that affluent candidates score over talented candidates and that’s what refuses to recognize dedicated and talented sportsmen from smaller cities.
- Politics – There is huge influence of politics in sports too, due to which our true sportsmen are missing. Politician plan well not to promote good talented, but their own kins. Also, sports management and conduction has merely became a another way of filling pocket in quick time.
- Government – Government doesn’t give fair amount of money for those who play for India. Unlike other countries, No scholarships are provided to sportsperson to excel their talent. No coaches, proper training and facilities are provided which could help the sportsman to improve their talent and skills.
- However India has an enormous population, but its “effectively participating population” in athletics is much smaller because people simply are not sufficiently aware of the Olympics or the sports involved in it.
- Indian families hardly ever encourage to play any sports and dont allow to choose it
as a career option , if it is not cricket. Mostly Indian parents desires for their child to be a doctor, engineers. Our success as an academically-oriented people proves that we are excellent at pursuing something that pays well , so does India’s obsession with cricket.
In the end I would like to conclude that ,Our country doesn’t lack in talent at all , all our youth need today is encouragement and motivation. If the Government concentrate on the struggling athletes and help them with providing proper training to nurture their talents and also with financial supports, infrastructure and facilities then INDIA will certainly add more medals to its tally in the future. Moreover it is high time for us to change our views and turn our attention to other sports rather than cricket and start applauding other games too!
“The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part. The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”
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16 Responses to 1 Billion people 1 silver medal-India at Olympics
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Sports as soon as this name comes every indian parent turns and say a big NO if their son or daughter wants to become a sports person. As they believe that there is no future in sports and their career would be ruined if they encourage them towards this. This results in talent of the sports as a result of which india lacks behind in sports specially winning at olympics.
The world’s largest democracy wins fewer medals per person than any other country. It’s been priced out of its most competitive sport, but could national priorities also play a role?India is a big deal. It has the world’s second-largest population and it is 9th in economy. But India is not very good at winning Olympic medals. There’s no single or certain answer to why, but India’s astonishingly poor performance offers some insights into just what does make an Olympic winner, and doesn’t. There’s no consensus, no obvious explanation, no single unified theory of Indian Olympic under-performance. Though there are certainly some factors particular to India that might explain this trend, this story might say as much about the better-performing countries and their ability to exploit certain advantages that India lacks.
There are plenty of village and local level athletic “strongman” competitions in the parts of the country where physical prowess is looked upon as a virtue.So guys do something for your country.
Official National Game- HOCKEY
Nationwide accepted National Game- CRICKET
Cricket- Ranked No.1 in all the three formats.
Hockey- National team couldn’t make it up to the Olympics Qualifying round.
These statistics are just to show where our country stands when it comes to our National games. If we will keep running after money and revenue from games, this is gonna be the only result. BCCI is getting richer with a total turnover of 200 Million a year and Hockey players are committing suicide.
It is the need of the hour that government should focus more on other games also. More and more games should be encouraged and appreciated so that we end up LAST in the Medals’ Tally like every year. We can expect thousand players from one billion if motivated and guided properly.
India is a giant name because India has a top world largest population country. And if we talk about games that is Olympics, Soccer or Cricket then our Indian definitely choose Cricket because Cricket give you fame, respect, money and whatever you want and even our media also want cricketers for there channel TRPs.
Therefore no parents want that there child will choose boxing, athelitics , soccer and that games in which they dont want fame. So in my point the hole story is based upon Fame and Money its not like to enhance the pride of our country.Even in India there is no limits of talent if a person is talented then Corruption. Goverment, Money will fall them down.
Thats Why i just want to say that change our thinking for all sports give respect to all sports only then we can achieve number one position in the world
India’s participation in very less as compared to its population. A prime reason could be much more importance given to cricket as a sport and also the cricketers. Lack of proper encouragement and adequate facilities fewer the desire of people to take athletics as their career options. Though cricket not being our national sport is being given the most priority over hockey where india has won eight gold medals in this field. They are not being promoted well . Even the government does not take much efforts to promote athletics. There are many people who are good in different aspects of athletics but due to lack of opportunity, casteism(that still prevails here) ,quotas and politics involved cannot upbring their career into athletics. Politics being involved in every field of india which is the leading cause for india lagging behind and china can be a best example to prove this.
Lack of proper infrastructure is one of the prime reason for such a poor show by India in sports other than cricket.But we cannot undermine the fact that cricket here gets so many facilities because of the fact that people take interest in cricket.People take pride in identifying with this game,because India has a respectable position in the world.Example of Sania Mirza shows that people will definitely take interest in a particular game if they have idols to look up to.
So the need of the hour is to provide better and improved infrastructure so that people do have idols in all sports.The games will become popular in long run.Politics in sports federation must be done away with immediately.This politics denies many deserving candidates their chance,which ultimately affects the performance at international sports meet.
This matter is really a very serious matter which should be taken in consideration.From my view i think India don’t lack in ability here people lack in getting chances.there may be enormous reasons for this as we all know “”India is a union of states” ever states has got fixed quotas for any world wide events and in this race states which has been developed with all sort of communication skill leads up.India has enormous talent but we lack with proper communication between people the main reason behind this EDUCATION ,CASTE DISCRIMINATION and many more.Our government should provide proper information to the common people so that they can equally participate with the world.
I second all points but apart from that if we will talk about the psychological part of Indians then its a problem of “DELAYING GRATIFICATION”. We as a Indian promotes the Cricket as the Brand game for India’s, it becomes more holistic when it comes to Ind-Pak match even after knowing that Hockey is our National game. The answer is simple the media people, the business people make it a hype, business flourished they gets their return on investment back. In that we should blame ourselves too who din’t even care about any sports. We know about Micheal Phelps but we don’t know who is the Indian swimmer participated in the Olympics. we know Lance Armstrong but we don’t know our Player Why ? because we never cared about other sports other than Cricket. Why the Cricket player have so craze, fame etc why n’t the other players. We should ask this to ourselves, why is it so lucrative for us to chose cricket as a career than any other sports – is it Money, fame, status, Fans, or the delicacy of being a sportsperson.
Its a major problem with INDIAN PARENTS..Still some of them cannot accept sports as profession.They want there son or daughter to stick to studies only..
lack of tallent is not the only reason… the problem is also in the infrastructure 4 sports… and the tenacity of people to take sports or atheletics as profession… lack of professionalism is also a major cause for it…
This is a vital problem,I think we Indian must be aware of this.Not only Government or parents everyone should take step ahead,So that the sportsmen can proove themselves and the talent has to be accesed and remarked.
the main encouragement comes from the parents. so parents should change their views.
After that comes Government’s help. It is a vital problem for a sportsmen to rise without Government help as India has the majority of poor.
No doubt that it’s a big shame on the face of such a populous country which has repeatedly given a dismal performance at the olympics and managed to win just a couple of medals, giving the citizens to rejoice at it as if we were hungry for just a single medal.It’s not that India has dearth of talent, but the talent has to be accessed and recognised and nurtured properly.For a country with such a large population, you’ll get the extraordinary talent in one out of thousand.A proper and guidance is required.Every year China comes out with flying colours at the olympics because of their zeal to win more and more.They are insatiable.This is what is missing in Indian athletes.Again the apathy of Indian sports ministry is major concern for such a bad show. Government need to invest money in sports other than cricket as well, other sports should be given equal opportunities.This way many Indians will be inspired to take up other sports and be dexterous in their field.This will boost Indians to get not only one silver medal,but number of gold medals at the Olympics as well.
Of course it’s a serious matter of concern for the talented clan of us, the Indians. Indian citizens need to be aware as well as hold pride in the sparks of each and every field of concern where a healthy competition prevails.
The sportsperson, of every possible game event, need to be given more and more opportunities to prove their mettle and the promotion on the same in concerns of morale support, financial support is also needed!
Then the ratio would raise up and highly probable.. one day.. we shall, definitely, bag laurels greater in numbers!
parents also need to encourage their kids and SPORTS should not be only boys section girls should also be motivated to take it as career option if we have to excel in olympics
It is not that the country lacks talent, one of the major issues of our nation is the infrastructure for the games. Most of the games required professional trainers and good equipment, most of the sports person doesn’t get these basic amenities for their training. Government should focus on these things and there should be national academies to nurture the talent of a player, so that the nation with one billion of people comes with a sound performance in these games.