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Rio 2016 Olympics
matt17br
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Luxemburger wrote:
Rafid wrote:
I am saying China were not as good before, GB always had a rich Olympic history, I am Australian and they won no medals in 1976, but know they are doing alright and were expected to get top 5 in the medal table, because we are very sporting. China only started to perform very well just recently, not to say they were non-existent before. China were a very much non-sporting nation before and there national sports they are known for speaks for themselves. There aerobic capacity isn't great and never was a particularly sporting nation and also they did not compete for some Olympics in 1956-1980.


I mean China also has 1.3 billion inhabitants, which results in a extremely high amount of possible talents.

That's a laugh!! If you know which country I'm from, you'd understand. Sad really Sad

If only population meant medals!!

I'm actually curious, why do you think is it that India does not invest as much as they should on sports? It really is weird to see North Korea even which has got double as many medals of your country in the all-time medal table.
(Former) Manager of pcmdaily.com/images/mg/2020/Micros/gen.png Generali pcmdaily.com/images/mg/2020/Micros/gen.png
 
http://v.ht/Matt17
ely27
Banana
 
valverde321
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
alexkr00 wrote:
ringo182 wrote:
The 4 American swimmers who were robbed at gunpoint point have been told not to leave Brazil as the police want to investigate a number of inaccuracies with their evidence.
What's the betting they were actually robbed by a load of prostitutrs at a brothel Embarassed


I wonder what your reaction would have been if someone would have said that about some British athletes.

Are you crazy Alex? British athletes dont have time for brothels, they just train and train, harder than others


I read somewhere that Lochte said his watch was stolen when he was robbed, but was then seen with it on his wrist after the supposed "robbing" when he entered the athletes village by a camera.
 
Spilak23
Knowing Lochte he doesn't remember one bit from that night Pfft
 
emre99
matt17br wrote:
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Luxemburger wrote:
Rafid wrote:
I am saying China were not as good before, GB always had a rich Olympic history, I am Australian and they won no medals in 1976, but know they are doing alright and were expected to get top 5 in the medal table, because we are very sporting. China only started to perform very well just recently, not to say they were non-existent before. China were a very much non-sporting nation before and there national sports they are known for speaks for themselves. There aerobic capacity isn't great and never was a particularly sporting nation and also they did not compete for some Olympics in 1956-1980.


I mean China also has 1.3 billion inhabitants, which results in a extremely high amount of possible talents.

That's a laugh!! If you know which country I'm from, you'd understand. Sad really Sad

If only population meant medals!!

I'm actually curious, why do you think is it that India does not invest as much as they should on sports? It really is weird to see North Korea even which has got double as many medals of your country in the all-time medal table.


India invest on e-sports Pfft
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AbhishekLFC
emre99 wrote:
matt17br wrote:
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Luxemburger wrote:
Rafid wrote:
I am saying China were not as good before, GB always had a rich Olympic history, I am Australian and they won no medals in 1976, but know they are doing alright and were expected to get top 5 in the medal table, because we are very sporting. China only started to perform very well just recently, not to say they were non-existent before. China were a very much non-sporting nation before and there national sports they are known for speaks for themselves. There aerobic capacity isn't great and never was a particularly sporting nation and also they did not compete for some Olympics in 1956-1980.


I mean China also has 1.3 billion inhabitants, which results in a extremely high amount of possible talents.

That's a laugh!! If you know which country I'm from, you'd understand. Sad really Sad

If only population meant medals!!

I'm actually curious, why do you think is it that India does not invest as much as they should on sports? It really is weird to see North Korea even which has got double as many medals of your country in the all-time medal table.


India invest on e-sports Pfft

Not even that! Somewhat on EA Sports though Pfft
 
AbhishekLFC
matt17br wrote:
Spoiler
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Luxemburger wrote:
Rafid wrote:
I am saying China were not as good before, GB always had a rich Olympic history, I am Australian and they won no medals in 1976, but know they are doing alright and were expected to get top 5 in the medal table, because we are very sporting. China only started to perform very well just recently, not to say they were non-existent before. China were a very much non-sporting nation before and there national sports they are known for speaks for themselves. There aerobic capacity isn't great and never was a particularly sporting nation and also they did not compete for some Olympics in 1956-1980.


I mean China also has 1.3 billion inhabitants, which results in a extremely high amount of possible talents.

That's a laugh!! If you know which country I'm from, you'd understand. Sad really Sad

If only population meant medals!!

I'm actually curious, why do you think is it that India does not invest as much as they should on sports? It really is weird to see North Korea even which has got double as many medals of your country in the all-time medal table.

This is gonna be a long post, so bear with me...
Spoiler
But before I get started, we did win our first medal this Olympics a few hours after I made that post. It was from a very unlikely source in women's wrestling. Earlier in the evening the more fancied female wrestler bowed out due to injury. This was a pleasant surprise.

Cricket: India's cricket World Cup win in 1983, beating the then mighty West Indies made sponsors chase that sport. We are currently World Number 1 in a sport played by only 8 teams at the highest level (Test cricket) and yet people follow it like a religion. It's not an Olympic sport but very lucrative. So, it is the only sporting option for most of the population.

Education: "Finish your studies and then go to play" is the most heard rebuke heard in India when children want to go play. Speaks for itself.

Decline of Hockey: We have 8 Olympic Gold medals in Hockey from 1928 to 1980. Our quarter final exit this year is our best finish since 1980! The move from playing field hockey in a 'field' to astro-turf killed our game. There was never any investment made and the sport left us behind.

Corruption: The Indian team doctor at the Olympics is a radiologist who knows nothing about sport medicine. He is also the son of the VP of the Indian Olympic Association. I wonder how he got the call Wink
The officials who accompany the athletes often outnumber them. The officials are flown business class while the athletes get economy. The officials at these Games have been partying with money meant for preparations of our athletes. They've been caught partying a few hours after out medal hopefuls have bowed out.

Clueless Ministers: Dipa Karmakar, who finished 4th in the Women's Vault, was wished luck by our Sports Minister on Twitter a few hours before the event. The greeting got her name wrong and had a picture of the minister and not of Dipa! In a similar incident a few months back, India was playing Laos in Vientienne in a Asian Championship qualifier. The Chairman of the Football Federation posted on Twitter saying, "All the best...versus Vietnam....in World Cup Qualifying". He got blasted online but goes to show the kind of people running our sport.

These ministers have killed most of our team sports. India were number 1 in football in Asia in the 50s. They have an Asian Games gold medal in football. Now we are lower than 150 in ranking. We have struggled in hockey for years. It is in the past 4-5 years that private organisations have gotten behind the sport and are trying to get it back to past glory. We were up there with the best in Volleyball, at least in Asia. Now we are nowhere.

Whatever Indian athletes achieve is 'despite' the system. It is hardly ever 'because' of the system. What Dipa Karmakar achieved in the Vault by finishing 4th is like a fairy tale. She is the first gymnast to represent India in the Olympics, and got within a whisker of a medal.
There is the story of a rower of ours, who finished 11th in the Single Sculls. He comes from a drought hit region of the country. Imagine the irony! He has recently put his house for sale because he has to treat his paralyzed mother. So far, there has been no announcement of aid for him.
Our shooters have done well in the past couple of Olympics, but they mostly come from Army backgrounds. Our badminton players have been doing well (Srikanth was so close to beating Lin Dan yesterday) but they mostly come from a single academy, of Pullela Gopichand, one of two Indians to ever win the All-England tournament. Most of what our athletes achieve is by their own efforts and travails. The government, ministers and federations just get in the way Frown
Spoiler
If anyone is interested, watch 'Chak De! India', a movie on the Indian Women's hockey team's Commonwealth Games Gold Medal win in Manchester,2002. The inspiration of the movie is that the win got about 4 inches of coverage in the newspaper, while cricket is covered full-page or even more. While that is not mentioned in the movie, the writer has admitted the same. It goes to show how much non-cricketing athletes have to struggle here. ('Chak De!' sort of is the equivalent to 'Vamos' )

Edited by AbhishekLFC on 18-08-2016 07:03
 
Arberg27
Blake og Gatlin :lol:

media.giphy.com/media/4A1am1JlzkJj2/giphy.gif
 
OZrocker
Very well said, Abhishek. Those of you who don't live in Britain, Australia or New Zealand probably aren't aware of cricket being so massive in India that it's practically a national religion.

For example, the Indian Premier League is a short-form cricket competition that runs for a little over a month each year, with 8-10 franchises owned by some of the richest and most well-known people in India. Last year, one top player last year earned 125 million rupees (almost US$2 million). Even that is dwarfed by the amount of money made by the people who run the tournament, with US$182 million reportedly added to the Indian GDP after 2015's tournament.

The 'work first, then play' is definitely accurate from what I understand, but another issue is there is also a lot of poverty in the country. This combined means very few young sporting stars actually get any kind of support they would elsewhere. Unless they're good at cricket, that is.

I didn't know that about the hockey situation though, sad to hear but not too surprising. At least India still dominate the weightlifting at the Comm Games though Pfft

AbhishekLFC wrote:
Dipa Karmakar, who finished 4th in the Women's Vault, was wished luck by our Sports Minister on Twitter a few hours before the event. The greeting got her name wrong and had a picture of the minister and not of Dipa!

That reminds of our (thankfully) ex-PM Tony Abbott wishing our captain "Mike" Jedinak best of luck at the FIFA World Cup. His name is actually Mile. Rolling Eyes
 
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Spilak23
Felix not having the best Olympics

Should've dived instead of throwing the baton Pfft

Seems like she was tripped. Not sure what happens then.
 
OZrocker
US have launched an appeal, on the replay there was minor contact with the Brazilian runner in the next lane. Apparently, they would normally be reinstated in a ninth lane, but since there are only eight lanes on the track they would have to be replacing a qualified team to compete now.
 
Arberg27
Well done of Brownlee brothers, impressive what GB can perform.
 
SSJ2Luigi
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Cricket: India's cricket World Cup win in 1983, beating the then mighty West Indies made sponsors chase that sport. We are currently World Number 1 in a sport played by only 8 teams at the highest level (Test cricket) and yet people follow it like a religion. It's not an Olympic sport but very lucrative. So, it is the only sporting option for most of the population.

Decline of Hockey: We have 8 Olympic Gold medals in Hockey from 1928 to 1980. Our quarter final exit this year is our best finish since 1980! The move from playing field hockey in a 'field' to astro-turf killed our game. There was never any investment made and the sport left us behind.

honestly I would love to see cricket 20/20 at the olympics, it's definetly on my dream-olympics list. not sure if India see 20/20 even as cricket but i assume they do.

I was really surprised when I read up on hockey history back in early 2000's or so and that some countries I didn't even really know as countries used to excell in it, India being one of them (Pakistan being the other). I would love to see those countries back in serious contention and seeing India make quarters and beating Argentina in pools really made me glad to see.
 
ringo182
20/20 would be great in the Olympics. They have 7s rugby so no reason why they shouldn't do it. I also think futsal should be included.
Would bring many more countries into the sport.
 
SSJ2Luigi
Argentina is olympic champion in hockey

"okay that's normal right, Argentina is really strong nation, finished top 3 from 2000 to 2012"

Men's Hockey

"lol what? really?"

gg's to belgium though, first time a team of theirs reached semi's since 1936 (around that time iirc) in all team sports.
 
Arberg27
DENMARK 13 MEDALS!!! OUR BEST OL SINCE 1948!

Lightning Bolt:
 
Strydz
OZrocker wrote:
That reminds of our (thankfully) ex-PM Tony Abbott wishing our captain "Mike" Jedinak best of luck at the FIFA World Cup. His name is actually Mile. Rolling Eyes

That was just one in a long list of Abbott stuff ups

Hells 500 Crew and 6 x Everester
Don Rd Launching Place
Melbourne Hill Rd Warrandyte
Colby Drive Belgrave South
William Rd The Patch
David Hill Rd Monbulk
Lakeside Drive Emerald
https://www.everesting.cc/hall-of-fame/
 
Strydz
AbhishekLFC wrote:
matt17br wrote:
Spoiler
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Luxemburger wrote:
Rafid wrote:
I am saying China were not as good before, GB always had a rich Olympic history, I am Australian and they won no medals in 1976, but know they are doing alright and were expected to get top 5 in the medal table, because we are very sporting. China only started to perform very well just recently, not to say they were non-existent before. China were a very much non-sporting nation before and there national sports they are known for speaks for themselves. There aerobic capacity isn't great and never was a particularly sporting nation and also they did not compete for some Olympics in 1956-1980.


I mean China also has 1.3 billion inhabitants, which results in a extremely high amount of possible talents.

That's a laugh!! If you know which country I'm from, you'd understand. Sad really Sad

If only population meant medals!!

I'm actually curious, why do you think is it that India does not invest as much as they should on sports? It really is weird to see North Korea even which has got double as many medals of your country in the all-time medal table.

This is gonna be a long post, so bear with me...
Spoiler
But before I get started, we did win our first medal this Olympics a few hours after I made that post. It was from a very unlikely source in women's wrestling. Earlier in the evening the more fancied female wrestler bowed out due to injury. This was a pleasant surprise.

Cricket: India's cricket World Cup win in 1983, beating the then mighty West Indies made sponsors chase that sport. We are currently World Number 1 in a sport played by only 8 teams at the highest level (Test cricket) and yet people follow it like a religion. It's not an Olympic sport but very lucrative. So, it is the only sporting option for most of the population.

Education: "Finish your studies and then go to play" is the most heard rebuke heard in India when children want to go play. Speaks for itself.

Decline of Hockey: We have 8 Olympic Gold medals in Hockey from 1928 to 1980. Our quarter final exit this year is our best finish since 1980! The move from playing field hockey in a 'field' to astro-turf killed our game. There was never any investment made and the sport left us behind.

Corruption: The Indian team doctor at the Olympics is a radiologist who knows nothing about sport medicine. He is also the son of the VP of the Indian Olympic Association. I wonder how he got the call Wink
The officials who accompany the athletes often outnumber them. The officials are flown business class while the athletes get economy. The officials at these Games have been partying with money meant for preparations of our athletes. They've been caught partying a few hours after out medal hopefuls have bowed out.

Clueless Ministers: Dipa Karmakar, who finished 4th in the Women's Vault, was wished luck by our Sports Minister on Twitter a few hours before the event. The greeting got her name wrong and had a picture of the minister and not of Dipa! In a similar incident a few months back, India was playing Laos in Vientienne in a Asian Championship qualifier. The Chairman of the Football Federation posted on Twitter saying, "All the best...versus Vietnam....in World Cup Qualifying". He got blasted online but goes to show the kind of people running our sport.

These ministers have killed most of our team sports. India were number 1 in football in Asia in the 50s. They have an Asian Games gold medal in football. Now we are lower than 150 in ranking. We have struggled in hockey for years. It is in the past 4-5 years that private organisations have gotten behind the sport and are trying to get it back to past glory. We were up there with the best in Volleyball, at least in Asia. Now we are nowhere.

Whatever Indian athletes achieve is 'despite' the system. It is hardly ever 'because' of the system. What Dipa Karmakar achieved in the Vault by finishing 4th is like a fairy tale. She is the first gymnast to represent India in the Olympics, and got within a whisker of a medal.
There is the story of a rower of ours, who finished 11th in the Single Sculls. He comes from a drought hit region of the country. Imagine the irony! He has recently put his house for sale because he has to treat his paralyzed mother. So far, there has been no announcement of aid for him.
Our shooters have done well in the past couple of Olympics, but they mostly come from Army backgrounds. Our badminton players have been doing well (Srikanth was so close to beating Lin Dan yesterday) but they mostly come from a single academy, of Pullela Gopichand, one of two Indians to ever win the All-England tournament. Most of what our athletes achieve is by their own efforts and travails. The government, ministers and federations just get in the way Frown
Spoiler
If anyone is interested, watch 'Chak De! India', a movie on the Indian Women's hockey team's Commonwealth Games Gold Medal win in Manchester,2002. The inspiration of the movie is that the win got about 4 inches of coverage in the newspaper, while cricket is covered full-page or even more. While that is not mentioned in the movie, the writer has admitted the same. It goes to show how much non-cricketing athletes have to struggle here. ('Chak De!' sort of is the equivalent to 'Vamos' )


Surely India has far more pressing things to invest in other than sport don't you think? Same goes for where I live, we have people who can't afford to buy food and heat there homes yet we invest hundreds of millions on top level sports. It's pretty shameful when you think about it
Hells 500 Crew and 6 x Everester
Don Rd Launching Place
Melbourne Hill Rd Warrandyte
Colby Drive Belgrave South
William Rd The Patch
David Hill Rd Monbulk
Lakeside Drive Emerald
https://www.everesting.cc/hall-of-fame/
 
ringo182
Strydz wrote:
AbhishekLFC wrote:
matt17br wrote:
Spoiler
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Luxemburger wrote:
Rafid wrote:
I am saying China were not as good before, GB always had a rich Olympic history, I am Australian and they won no medals in 1976, but know they are doing alright and were expected to get top 5 in the medal table, because we are very sporting. China only started to perform very well just recently, not to say they were non-existent before. China were a very much non-sporting nation before and there national sports they are known for speaks for themselves. There aerobic capacity isn't great and never was a particularly sporting nation and also they did not compete for some Olympics in 1956-1980.


I mean China also has 1.3 billion inhabitants, which results in a extremely high amount of possible talents.

That's a laugh!! If you know which country I'm from, you'd understand. Sad really Sad

If only population meant medals!!

I'm actually curious, why do you think is it that India does not invest as much as they should on sports? It really is weird to see North Korea even which has got double as many medals of your country in the all-time medal table.

This is gonna be a long post, so bear with me...
Spoiler
But before I get started, we did win our first medal this Olympics a few hours after I made that post. It was from a very unlikely source in women's wrestling. Earlier in the evening the more fancied female wrestler bowed out due to injury. This was a pleasant surprise.

Cricket: India's cricket World Cup win in 1983, beating the then mighty West Indies made sponsors chase that sport. We are currently World Number 1 in a sport played by only 8 teams at the highest level (Test cricket) and yet people follow it like a religion. It's not an Olympic sport but very lucrative. So, it is the only sporting option for most of the population.

Education: "Finish your studies and then go to play" is the most heard rebuke heard in India when children want to go play. Speaks for itself.

Decline of Hockey: We have 8 Olympic Gold medals in Hockey from 1928 to 1980. Our quarter final exit this year is our best finish since 1980! The move from playing field hockey in a 'field' to astro-turf killed our game. There was never any investment made and the sport left us behind.

Corruption: The Indian team doctor at the Olympics is a radiologist who knows nothing about sport medicine. He is also the son of the VP of the Indian Olympic Association. I wonder how he got the call Wink
The officials who accompany the athletes often outnumber them. The officials are flown business class while the athletes get economy. The officials at these Games have been partying with money meant for preparations of our athletes. They've been caught partying a few hours after out medal hopefuls have bowed out.

Clueless Ministers: Dipa Karmakar, who finished 4th in the Women's Vault, was wished luck by our Sports Minister on Twitter a few hours before the event. The greeting got her name wrong and had a picture of the minister and not of Dipa! In a similar incident a few months back, India was playing Laos in Vientienne in a Asian Championship qualifier. The Chairman of the Football Federation posted on Twitter saying, "All the best...versus Vietnam....in World Cup Qualifying". He got blasted online but goes to show the kind of people running our sport.

These ministers have killed most of our team sports. India were number 1 in football in Asia in the 50s. They have an Asian Games gold medal in football. Now we are lower than 150 in ranking. We have struggled in hockey for years. It is in the past 4-5 years that private organisations have gotten behind the sport and are trying to get it back to past glory. We were up there with the best in Volleyball, at least in Asia. Now we are nowhere.

Whatever Indian athletes achieve is 'despite' the system. It is hardly ever 'because' of the system. What Dipa Karmakar achieved in the Vault by finishing 4th is like a fairy tale. She is the first gymnast to represent India in the Olympics, and got within a whisker of a medal.
There is the story of a rower of ours, who finished 11th in the Single Sculls. He comes from a drought hit region of the country. Imagine the irony! He has recently put his house for sale because he has to treat his paralyzed mother. So far, there has been no announcement of aid for him.
Our shooters have done well in the past couple of Olympics, but they mostly come from Army backgrounds. Our badminton players have been doing well (Srikanth was so close to beating Lin Dan yesterday) but they mostly come from a single academy, of Pullela Gopichand, one of two Indians to ever win the All-England tournament. Most of what our athletes achieve is by their own efforts and travails. The government, ministers and federations just get in the way Frown
Spoiler
If anyone is interested, watch 'Chak De! India', a movie on the Indian Women's hockey team's Commonwealth Games Gold Medal win in Manchester,2002. The inspiration of the movie is that the win got about 4 inches of coverage in the newspaper, while cricket is covered full-page or even more. While that is not mentioned in the movie, the writer has admitted the same. It goes to show how much non-cricketing athletes have to struggle here. ('Chak De!' sort of is the equivalent to 'Vamos' )


Surely India has far more pressing things to invest in other than sport don't you think? Same goes for where I live, we have people who can't afford to buy food and heat there homes yet we invest hundreds of millions on top level sports. It's pretty shameful when you think about it


I had the same thought. But at the same time every country in the world has people who can't afford to eat or heat themselves. Obviously some countries have it worse than others but you could argue that no country should be spending so much on sports.
But the benefits of a strong sporting programme bring so much such as a healthier country and lower medical costs which surely means you could justify it even for a country like India.
 
AbhishekLFC
ringo182 wrote:
Strydz wrote:
AbhishekLFC wrote:
matt17br wrote:
Spoiler
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Luxemburger wrote:
Rafid wrote:
I am saying China were not as good before, GB always had a rich Olympic history, I am Australian and they won no medals in 1976, but know they are doing alright and were expected to get top 5 in the medal table, because we are very sporting. China only started to perform very well just recently, not to say they were non-existent before. China were a very much non-sporting nation before and there national sports they are known for speaks for themselves. There aerobic capacity isn't great and never was a particularly sporting nation and also they did not compete for some Olympics in 1956-1980.


I mean China also has 1.3 billion inhabitants, which results in a extremely high amount of possible talents.

That's a laugh!! If you know which country I'm from, you'd understand. Sad really Sad

If only population meant medals!!

I'm actually curious, why do you think is it that India does not invest as much as they should on sports? It really is weird to see North Korea even which has got double as many medals of your country in the all-time medal table.

This is gonna be a long post, so bear with me...
Spoiler
But before I get started, we did win our first medal this Olympics a few hours after I made that post. It was from a very unlikely source in women's wrestling. Earlier in the evening the more fancied female wrestler bowed out due to injury. This was a pleasant surprise.

Cricket: India's cricket World Cup win in 1983, beating the then mighty West Indies made sponsors chase that sport. We are currently World Number 1 in a sport played by only 8 teams at the highest level (Test cricket) and yet people follow it like a religion. It's not an Olympic sport but very lucrative. So, it is the only sporting option for most of the population.

Education: "Finish your studies and then go to play" is the most heard rebuke heard in India when children want to go play. Speaks for itself.

Decline of Hockey: We have 8 Olympic Gold medals in Hockey from 1928 to 1980. Our quarter final exit this year is our best finish since 1980! The move from playing field hockey in a 'field' to astro-turf killed our game. There was never any investment made and the sport left us behind.

Corruption: The Indian team doctor at the Olympics is a radiologist who knows nothing about sport medicine. He is also the son of the VP of the Indian Olympic Association. I wonder how he got the call Wink
The officials who accompany the athletes often outnumber them. The officials are flown business class while the athletes get economy. The officials at these Games have been partying with money meant for preparations of our athletes. They've been caught partying a few hours after out medal hopefuls have bowed out.

Clueless Ministers: Dipa Karmakar, who finished 4th in the Women's Vault, was wished luck by our Sports Minister on Twitter a few hours before the event. The greeting got her name wrong and had a picture of the minister and not of Dipa! In a similar incident a few months back, India was playing Laos in Vientienne in a Asian Championship qualifier. The Chairman of the Football Federation posted on Twitter saying, "All the best...versus Vietnam....in World Cup Qualifying". He got blasted online but goes to show the kind of people running our sport.

These ministers have killed most of our team sports. India were number 1 in football in Asia in the 50s. They have an Asian Games gold medal in football. Now we are lower than 150 in ranking. We have struggled in hockey for years. It is in the past 4-5 years that private organisations have gotten behind the sport and are trying to get it back to past glory. We were up there with the best in Volleyball, at least in Asia. Now we are nowhere.

Whatever Indian athletes achieve is 'despite' the system. It is hardly ever 'because' of the system. What Dipa Karmakar achieved in the Vault by finishing 4th is like a fairy tale. She is the first gymnast to represent India in the Olympics, and got within a whisker of a medal.
There is the story of a rower of ours, who finished 11th in the Single Sculls. He comes from a drought hit region of the country. Imagine the irony! He has recently put his house for sale because he has to treat his paralyzed mother. So far, there has been no announcement of aid for him.
Our shooters have done well in the past couple of Olympics, but they mostly come from Army backgrounds. Our badminton players have been doing well (Srikanth was so close to beating Lin Dan yesterday) but they mostly come from a single academy, of Pullela Gopichand, one of two Indians to ever win the All-England tournament. Most of what our athletes achieve is by their own efforts and travails. The government, ministers and federations just get in the way Frown
Spoiler
If anyone is interested, watch 'Chak De! India', a movie on the Indian Women's hockey team's Commonwealth Games Gold Medal win in Manchester,2002. The inspiration of the movie is that the win got about 4 inches of coverage in the newspaper, while cricket is covered full-page or even more. While that is not mentioned in the movie, the writer has admitted the same. It goes to show how much non-cricketing athletes have to struggle here. ('Chak De!' sort of is the equivalent to 'Vamos' )


Surely India has far more pressing things to invest in other than sport don't you think? Same goes for where I live, we have people who can't afford to buy food and heat there homes yet we invest hundreds of millions on top level sports. It's pretty shameful when you think about it


I had the same thought. But at the same time every country in the world has people who can't afford to eat or heat themselves. Obviously some countries have it worse than others but you could argue that no country should be spending so much on sports.
But the benefits of a strong sporting programme bring so much such as a healthier country and lower medical costs which surely means you could justify it even for a country like India.

What ringo said basically!

The thing with having a sports culture is that it gives people good health on top of an extra means of finding occupation and income. Sure there is widespread poverty in our country. But taking the example of the IPL (although I don't really like the event itself), decent cricketers from the poorest of poor backgrounds get big contracts and they pull themselves and a few future generations out of poverty. Similarly, the announced prize money (including govt. and pvt.) for medal winners at these Olympics is around Rs. 3.5 crore ($520K). That is a huge sum for our athletes. There is stuff like the Indian Soccer League (ISL), the Pro Kabaddi League(PKL) and the Indian Badminton League(IBL) now established. and quite popular too.

The thing to take to heart is that there was Test match going on at the same time as the Indian shuttler was playing the Women's Singles Semi-Final of the badminton event and cricket got overshadowed. That is a good sign for other sports. P.V. Sindhu reached the final beating Okuhara in straight sets in what is Indian badminton's greatest ever achievement. She takes on Carolina Marin later today. You can be sure I'll be watching that Wink

The signs are positive. We just need the level of investment to catch up.
 
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