[Fizix]

Originally Posted by LostFool

The big difference in the US is that competitive sport is taken seriously and most High Schools have very good facilities. Sport in UK state schools is suffering from the lack of investment over many years and the attitude from the loony left Unions that competitive sport is bad for kids. How many Comprehensive schools have a pool and proper athletics track, let alone anyone with any qualifications to identify and coach talent?

It's not surprising that the GBR team is dominated by privately educated athletes from schools with good facilities and coaches. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oly...-educated.html

And there is the answer.

Compare a typical "half decent" American schools sporting facilities & sporting activities with a British schools. They are worlds apart; your average American school would be embarrassed by a half decent British schools facilities.


I don't know much about China but I'd expect that there is a similar ethos going on; even if the implementation is different.

[RichmondBlue]

With 20% of the world's population they don't really punch above their weight. Perhaps the question should be, why do India perform so badly ?

[Tianshan]

Originally Posted by RichmondBlue

With 20% of the world's population they don't really punch above their weight. Perhaps the question should be, why do India perform so badly ?

That is a much more logical question.

India has a lot of people, almost as much as China does. So if we assume that human beings generally have a similar amount of athletic potential, then India should have as many "exceptional" potential athletes as we do.

The trouble is finding and training them. That is where they don't do as well as China does. And this is also where China does not do as well as the developed nations.

[chrono88]

The "robotic" comment by the OP is really below the belt

[cheesy_pasty]

Originally Posted by RichmondBlue

With 20% of the world's population they don't really punch above their weight. Perhaps the question should be, why do India perform so badly ?

But there is only a finite amount of events, so a country with a population 20 times larger than GB for example...couldn't get 20 times more medals because there aren't that many available.
It's all to do with training and how they are built up for the games.

[batdude_uk1]

Meh, they will never win any of the football or basketball medals, same with the rowing, so those are off limits to them, so I wouldn't say that they were that dominant at all really.

[yesman2012]

Originally Posted by Tianshan

Actually, if you look at our population size, my country (China) is significantly UNDER-performing.

Why is it that a nation (America) with only 300 million people, can beat us in nearly every single Olympics, and significantly out-class us in nearly every other area, whether it is economics or diplomacy or technology?

The truth is that we have always under-performed on a per-capita basis. The only place that we actually exceed the world average is in student's tests scores, which don't even necessarily relate to real-world performance.

Population size is a misleading thing to use as a comparison between countries, economics needs to be accounted for.

America is alot richer than china on a per capita basis, in china probably 1/3 of the population lives in very rural villages, people there maybe haven't even heard of the olympics or they probably won't have even considered taking up sport seriousity. This idea that a country has 1 billion to pick talents from is totally unrealistic, the vast majority of the chinese athletes probably only came from city/wealthier areas of the country.

[yesman2012]

Originally Posted by PlatinumSteve

It might be because we live in an open society, that doesn't practice authoritarian top down control? And we don't have a cut throat win or nothing mentality that the Chinese have. Or it could be that the entire "West" is anti-Chinese, although I think you'll find that outside the US most of the "west" is more anti-American than it is anti-China, but of course to someone who is anti-American it would look like all the sudden China is being "picked on."

With the massive intense media focus on athletes these days along with potentially $millions in sponsorship money for those who succeed, I don't think its fair to say that its only they who have a ''cut throat win or nothing mentality''. Can you even imagine the headlines over in the U.S if your swimmers came away with no medals?

[StarryNight1983]

I persnonally dont think they will do as well in the athletics programme ... USA are very dominant!

[roddydogs]

Who cares how many medal they win, you wouldn't want to live there, neither do most Chinese.

[treme]

It's all that greyhound they eat.

[Bhaveshgor]

Originally Posted by Tianshan

That is a much more logical question.

India has a lot of people, almost as much as China does. So if we assume that human beings generally have a similar amount of athletic potential, then India should have as many "exceptional" potential athletes as we do.

The trouble is finding and training them. That is where they don't do as well as China does. And this is also where China does not do as well as the developed nations.

also indian don't have the access to sports, sports is not really taught in schools, but I expect all this to change as the middle class grows, India will probably be in the top 10 in the medal table in the next 25 years, they won't dominate but will start to win medals.

[Bhaveshgor]

Originally Posted by RichmondBlue

With 20% of the world's population they don't really punch above their weight. Perhaps the question should be, why do India perform so badly ?

why does everyone always mentions india
why not pakistan/Banglandesh
they do also have very large populations, the subcontinent is about 1/5 of the world population yet they only won 1 medal.

[RichmondBlue]

Originally Posted by Tianshan

That is a much more logical question.

India has a lot of people, almost as much as China does. So if we assume that human beings generally have a similar amount of athletic potential, then India should have as many "exceptional" potential athletes as we do.

The trouble is finding and training them. That is where they don't do as well as China does. And this is also where China does not do as well as the developed nations.

That's all true. There also appears to be a big cultural difference, Indian parents appear to despise sport..even those that are wealthy. At least that used to be the case, even among the immigrant population. Things are probably changing gradually.

[Bhaveshgor]

Originally Posted by RichmondBlue

That's all true. There also appears to be a big cultural difference, Indian parents appear to despise sport..even those that are wealthy. At least that used to be the case, even among the immigrant population. Things are probably changing gradually.

it not that they despise sports, it just that they all think about money, they don't want they children playing sports when they could be studying and getting better jobs, Many parent don't despise they children playing cricket because Indian cricketers get paid really well.

[Mandark]

Originally Posted by RichmondBlue

That's all true. There also appears to be a big cultural difference, Indian parents appear to despise sport..even those that are wealthy. At least that used to be the case, even among the immigrant population. Things are probably changing gradually.

I think the Delhi Commonwealth games were meant to raise the profile of Olympic sports in India and its neighbours. Didn't help that there was a big doping scandal though.

[anirose26]

I don't think it is just population. Because even if a country has 1 million people,all of them are not going into participate olympics. Just fair enough of people will do to choose from and practise. I think it is funding and training which make them to get more medals.

[Trains123]

Originally Posted by Ads

They have over 20 times our population, but nowhere near 20 times our medals, so it's all relative

That's just stupid in my opinion. Just because a country's population is 15-20 larger does not mean they ought to win 20 times more medals. The fact is, despite the huge tradition of sports in the UK, the country has always underperformed in most sports.

In many of the competitions the Chinese are doing well, in reality, most of these sports are actually relatively unknown in China. They have these core group of athletes that they train (almost like equating to a lab) even though most people are unaware of the sports they participate in.

[anirose26]

Originally Posted by RichmondBlue

With 20% of the world's population they don't really punch above their weight. Perhaps the question should be, why do India perform so badly ?

As an Indian myself,i can answer this based on my knowledge. There are several factors why we don't perform well in olympics.

1. Children are not encouraged in their school levels. If students spend their time in playing even in their playing time rather than spending in reading, teachers look down on them and sometimes yell at them, although this view is changing gradually.

2. Government don't spend much funding for the talented ones.

3. Again due to less funding,it is difficult to find good coaches and give them proper quality training.

4. Not enough encouragement/publicity/appreciation from public who mostly concentrate only in cricket.

I know lot of talented athletes who spend rest of their life in working in shops or doing some small jobs for living because of negligence of government and not enough of sponsorship. India is a rich country and money is well kept within government and among corrupted politicians. And people have to work hard to earn money for their everyday living and they don't have time to think about entering into any sports. We just like to watch cricket or any other sports in tv after the hard day of working.

[Louise_Man]

Originally Posted by roddydogs

Who cares how many medal they win, you wouldn't want to live there, neither do most Chinese.

I don't think you could afford to live there, you can't even buy a one bedroom flat in places like Hong Kong and Shanghai for less than £500K.

[Pumping Iron]

Originally Posted by roddydogs

Who cares how many medal they win, you wouldn't want to live there, neither do most Chinese.

How do you know?

[RichmondBlue]

Originally Posted by anirose26

As an Indian myself,i can answer this based on my knowledge. There are several factors why we don't perform well in olympics.

1. Children are not encouraged in their school levels. If students spend their time in playing even in their playing time rather than spending in reading, teachers look down on them and sometimes yell at them, although this view is changing gradually.

2. Government don't spend much funding for the talented ones.

3. Again due to less funding,it is difficult to find good coaches and give them proper quality training.

4. Not enough encouragement/publicity/appreciation from public who mostly concentrate only in cricket.

I know lot of talented athletes who spend rest of their life in working in shops or doing some small jobs for living because of negligence of government and not enough of sponsorship. India is a rich country and money is well kept within government and among corrupted politicians. And people have to work hard to earn money for their everyday living and they don't have time to think about entering into any sports. We just like to watch cricket or any other sports in tv after the hard day of working.

That's interesting. I would have thought sport would have been a great release from the tedium of low paid work. But there again, I have no idea of how hard work must be for the majority of Indians. It's probably not 9 to 5 as we know it.
I do have experience of running a few football teams for youngsters. There was never any trouble finding young Indian or Pakistani kids who were really keen, but trying to get their parents interested was a different matter. They did appear to regard most sports with disdain.

[Fowl Fax]

Originally Posted by roddydogs

Who cares how many medal they win, you wouldn't want to live there, neither do most Chinese.

Over 1 billion people would disagree with you.

There are a lot of Britons who are choosing to live in China.

[roddydogs]

The majority of Chinese live in comparative poverty compared with the West, yes they now have many Millionaires but compared to the general population, their very small.
Not to mention the 1 child rule, and that many daughters are left to die.

[PlatinumSteve]

Originally Posted by roddydogs

The majority of Chinese live in comparative poverty compared with the West, yes they now have many Millionaires but compared to the general population, their very small.
Not to mention the 1 child rule, and that many daughters are left to die.

They don't practice the 1 child per family rule as much anymore, and if both parents are from 1 child homes they aren't restricted. I heard a long piece on NPR about this, apparently handicapping the next generation to be only 50% as reproductive has a devastating demographic effect if you want them to be around to care for the elderly, lol, who would have guessed that reducing children being born means there won't be enough adults to care for the elderly. It was a very short sighted program to begin with.