In terms of population size and medals won, there is no worse Olympic performer than India. It seems strange that a country of more than 1.2 billion people can only collect an average of less than one medal per Games, commented Euronews.

Beijing 2008 was India’s most successful Olympics to date; it finished with one Gold and two Bronze medals. That is over 383 million people per medal, the highest ratio of all competing nations at Beijing.

There is no doubt that India has sporting talent, so why does it fail to translate this into Olympic success?

Anirudh Krishna and Eric Haglund argue in a 2008 report in the Indian publication Economic and Political Weekly that “Olympians are drawn, not from the entire population of a country, but only from the share that is effectively participating. Low medal tallies can arise both because a country has very few people and because very few of its people effectively participate.” 

They go on to contend that there are certain factors that limit effective participation. Those factors, they say, are health, education, public information and what they call ‘physical connectedness’ i.e. a population’s ability to travel.

Madhuli Kulkarni is the founder of the ALTIUS Centre for Excellence in Delhi. As a sports psychologist she has worked with hundreds of top Indian athletes. She believes that traditionally, sport has always taken a back seat to studies for young Indians, or in any case the parents of young Indians. She told euronews:

“Parents here have the authority to take the decisions in their child’s life. India was not a sports nation. Especially post-independence, Indian parents gave a lot of importance to academics and sport was considered as a “time pass” activity or just for recreational purpose. Sport was never a priority for a majority of parents and their kids. In fact we have a saying in Hindi – India’s National language – “Kheloge kudoge to honge kharab, padhoge likhoge to banoge nawab” which means that your life will be a waste if you play but if you study or do well in academics you will be a king.”

Madhuli also points to corruption, favouritism, apathy and bad management among sports’ governing bodies as turn-off to young Indian sportspeople. However she does believe that, while India still has a long way to go, things are looking up.