Why does a country as big and able as India fail to produce top class athletes?

The participation of India in the Sochi Winter Olympics this year in Russia was a fiasco of massive proportions. The dream of every athlete of holding his country’s flag high at the Games hit rock bottom when the Indian athletes – a luger, a cross country skier, and an alpine skier – competed under a stock Olympic flag after the nation was suspended from the Sochi games.

India actually had been banned from Olympic activity since December 2012, when it’s Olympic association was banned by the International Olympic Committee. The IOC had claimed that the Indian Olympic Association primarily comprised politicians which was against the rules – such an ignominy for a country with so many ambitions.

Indian athletes (left to right: luger Shiva Keshavan, cross-country skier Nadeem Iqbal, and Alpine skier Himanshu Thakur), labelled as Independent Olympic participants march under IOC flag during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia

The Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games are hardly covered by the Indian media unless it’s the host nation where it is supposed to have more chances of grabbing medals.

There’s no unanimity, no obvious explanation, no single unified theory of Indian Olympic under-performance. Though there are certainly some factors specific to India that might explain this trend, those might say as much about the better-performing countries and their ability to exploit certain advantages that India lacks.

The Indian GDP per capita is well into the bottom quartile of all countries, ranked among landlocked African nations and still recovering former war zones. Indians are poor as well as weakened by poor infrastructure and poor governance, which touches everything from public health to education to opportunities for advancement. Derek Thompson explained why rich countries tend to perform so well in the Olympics, boosted by better access to athletics infrastructure such as swimming pools and tennis courts, by “talent magnetism,” and other factors.

Its not just the facilities provided that matter, but also the standard of living in a country. Suppose a person in the United States decides to try his skills at athletics and wants to give a shot at winning medals in the Games in the near future, he can do that; and if he fails to get anything out of this profession, he can resort to something else outside of sports and still manage to live a good life. But if the same person attempts to do this in India, he will never recover from his decision that may turn out to be a mistake, and will forever have to struggle throughout his life, because he has neither the educational qualification nor the skills to equip himself/herself for a life outside sport.

Though the population of India is more than 1.2 billion, the portion of the population participating in athletics is very low. This is mainly because of poor childhood health, physical isolation by poor transportation from the athletics centers in the big cities, or often because they are simply not sufficiently aware of the Olympics or the sports involved. To add to this, the idea of representing a country doesn’t exactly come to mind for someone when they find it really difficult to have two square meals a day.

Other developing countries like India such as Russia and China also have a fair share of poor sections in their population. But the number of well-educated and well-nourished people in such countries is also high. They make up a good portion of the effective participating population.

Yet, the income of a country can’t be the dominant factor in deciding whether it can excel in Olympics or not. Poorer countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa excel in some of the sports. For instance, though unemployment in Spain has reached an all-time high, they are one of the best at hockey and football. Some of the poorest countries like Kenya and Ethiopia are home to some of the best runners. Kazakhstan dominates in weightlifting. Regional differences play a part in this. It seems India has yet to discover an event in the Olympics in which it can excel, since the golden days of hockey are long gone.

What India needs is the government as well as parents to take the initiative. Yes, you read it right. Parents!

A father who wants his children to only study, but not give a shot at sports has got no right to ask, “Why doesn’t India win medals at Olympics?”.

Encouragement should begin right at the grassroots level. Then comes the government. The government should have a proper system for athletics and other sports. Children should be given training right from school level. Some hours per week should be allotted only to athletics. Poor kids should be given proper training to nurture their skills. Monetary rewards should be given to those who gather medals at the Games, which would at least encourage some to take up sports as a profession.

Even in such unfortunate and helpless circumstances, India does have reasons for optimism. London provided it’s best medal total and it sent it’s largest ever delegation of athletes to the Games (83). Everyone hopes that the number of delegates as well as medals increases when it travels to Rio in two years time. Nobody is expecting miracles, but success breeds success; if any Indian heroes do emerge from Rio in 2016, there will be hundreds of millions of youngsters back in India ready to try and emulate them. One can only hope to wait and see if the country can see another Milkha Singh in the near future.