Summer sports: Aquatics Archery Athletics Badminton Baseball Basketball Boxing Canoe / kayak Cycling Equestrian Fencing Football Gymnastics Handball Hockey Judo Modern pentathlon Rowing Sailing Shooting Softball Table tennis Taekwondo Tennis Triathlon Volleyball Weightlifting Wrestling

Yet the subcontinent has one of the most diverse genetic pools around, and a history of centuries of warfare. Contrast that to China which is far more homogeneous and was at peace for far longer stretches of time. The genetic argument just doesn’t make sense. Even if you were right, out of over a billion people there should be the handful who are good at sports, just by chance alone, no matter what the mean tendency is.

For whatever myriad reasons, (existence of advanced civilization for several millenia, lack of strong need to hunt and gather) the various gene pools of the Indian subcontinent lack “athletic” genes. This could be characterized by lack of certain anatomical characteristics (height, muscle tone and build, ratio of fast twitch muscle fibers to slow twitch muscle fibers etc).

We have the very best facilities in India now. But what is lacking is the passion that drove people like me. We wanted to achieve glory for the country. These days many athletes are looking to take the short route to fame. Drug use has become rampant. They are not willing to train, put in the hard yards. And then there is cricket, which is weaning away youngsters from other sports, athletics included … I ran in the hills. I ran along the metre-gauge tracks in Secunderabad, pitting myself against the trains that raced across these tracks. Sand training I did by running along the banks of Yamuna. All this happened under Havildar Gurdev Singh’s guidance. It was done on bare feet since we did not have spikes in India during those days.

[link]

A little exaggerated and focuses on passion and nationalism instead of cold hard risk-reward analysis, but there’s some truth in it. Argument from authority aside, if you track the career of athletes like Milkha Singh, Sriram Singh, G S Randhawa, two constants were army and NIS (Patiala) and those two are powerful institutions even today. Surendra Singh, who only a couple of months ago broke 16-year old national record of Bahadur Prasad in 3000m, is from Garwhal Rifles. I have no inside knowledge, but it is difficult to imagine that Indian army and post-SAI NIS have fewer resources and worse facilities today than they had 20-30 years ago. Performances overall have been very underwhelming though. A lot of the old records are still standing and the improvements in the ones that have been broken are marginal.

Incentives matter. With economic growth, for the “effective” Indian population, the opportunity costs of dedication to Olympic sports — in reality, any sports except Cricket, and perhaps Golf and Tennis — have increased significantly, which is not a bad thing at all. The rewards in terms of marketing potential have not caught up yet, but they will.

Why? Many things in Indian education have worsened since the 1970s.

Definitely since 10.2s would be a new national record. [link] What stands out the most in that list is how old some of those records are — 800m (1976), Pole Vault (1987), 500m (1992), 3000m steeplechase (1981), Javelin (1998), Marathon (1978). It is hard to argue that infrastructure has worsened since those days.

You really think hungry people are “better off” than those who have more to eat?

Our ancestors also advocated a vigoorous phyical lifestyle and defence of our material possession till some deluded peaceniks like Siddhartha Gautama came on the scene and advocated ahimsa and “lie back and play dead”.

Repeating the same lies ad nauseam will not make it true. Buddhism certainly did not weaken or impoverish nations like Japan and Thailand. India was overrun by invaders after brahminism had replaced buddhism as the majority religion. Blame brahminism for India’s defeats.

An Ashoka who by all rights should have gone on to build an empire instead became a weak-kneed bleeding heart liberal!

Asoka did build an empire. There is a reason why historians consider him Ashoka the Great. Besides his large kingdom in the subcontinent he laid the foundation of an Empire of the Spirit that covered most of the world’s population.

India assembled the world’s largest volunteer army during WW2 – over 2 million. You shd get your facts right before you jump the sharrk

So much pride in serving as cannon fodder in the wars of a foreign colonial master who treated Indians like dirt. How pathetic is that?