Let us accept the truth

[cowboysfan]

Olympic medal is not only about excellence in a sport' date=' it is how much money a govt/sporting authority is willing to spend to get a medal. The author thinks that medals are won by spectator following of the sport. So let's all clamor to the stadium where the next T&F event happens in Madurai, TN.[/quote'] this in a nutshell.I think the government should focus their energy on sports like shooting,freestyle wrestling ,boxing, weight-lighting etc. for Rio.

[The Dark Horse]

It's hilarious to see you guys debate this. Look around you' date=' how many pools do you see? How many swimming/basketball/sprinting coaches and facilities do you see? India[b'] does not have a sporting culture. End of story. My son plays soccer, baseball, track and basketball. He can play pickup games anytime he wants. He knows how to swim since the age of 3 because there are pools all over the place. Where in India are there access to facilities at a grassroot level? No where. How can anybody expect anyone to learn, let along, excell, in any sport without any cultural emphasis? Heck, there are more cricket grounds in a 30 mile radius from me than the entirety of South India. And i live in the US. :hysterical:

So true

[Stuge]

off topic

[anish233]

this article is messed up... In Nepal we follow all the sports, at least we do... but we havent even won a BRONZE.. like EVER. does that mean ppl in Nepal dont watch sports?.. HECK NO. we crazy about cricket, we crazy about football (the real kind), and we also have tons of ppl following Tennis, Basketball and F1. But the fact is, we suck at sports. Our government doesnt think sports is important, we dont have the facilities that the 1st world country do. The Olympics symbolizes the powerhouses... the countries who are willing and have the money to spend on sports. thats what it is. And hey isn't t20 gonna be a olympic sport soon?.. so that gold for india isn't far off !.. on top of that, why care about what others do?... i dont give a damn about NFL, cuz i dont like that sport. I love Cricket and Basketball, so i follow it. Its all in perspectives. and your personal opinions.

[Vijay.Sharma]

^Who the **** cares about 90% of the world thinks ? Does the US care about what 90% of the world think about American football or baseball ? We like watching cricket, and that is it. If something else catches the fancy, people will watch it too. I will take the so-called-fake 'We -are-MAN-U' supporters in Mumbai over the 'We should watch hockey since it is our national game' crap, any day of the week. Most people (and it is clear from viewership statistics) would rather watch paint dry on their cricket bat than watch (outside of olympics) swimming, declathon, wrestling, volleball, archery, and such. Most of it mind numbingly boring.

Agree with you. I don't understand this fascination about what the rest of the world thinks are popular sports. Also, we watch sports where we are generally good at. When we were the powerhouses in hockey, it was a popular sport. Cricket's popularity started growing since the 70s prior to which cricket was restricted to the metros and middle / upper class viewers. Apart from cricket we have not been seriously good in any other sport in the last two decades. Badminton's popularity rose and fell with Padukone and Gopichand's achievements. I hope things change with Saina Nehwal...I hope we find someone of her caliber soon enough to keep us engaged. On the other hand Tennis remains a cosmopolitan sport despite Lee-Hesh. In fact, cricket is probably the second most followed team sport on the planet behind Football (the one that is played with the foot). Chalo apna population ka kuch toh fayda hua

[Vijay.Sharma]

lol half of the games you mentioned is loved by most people' date=' Indians and non-Indians, that I know of. Statistics what statistics? Swimming will be watched by more people than world cricket finals :winky: volleyball is an awesome game to watch, same with wrestling.[/quote']Seriously? Maybe you should have qualified that statement just the way you asked Tiger80 to do his - FOR ME. For ex, Wrestling is an awesome game to watch FOR ME I like watching Volleyball though :winky:

[Vijay.Sharma]

This. It doesn't matter how many follow. It's genetics. We have those in Hockey but no one plays.

I didn't know we had special genes for hockey, special genes for football, special genes for archery, special genes for volleyball, special genes for cricket. Bhai, the influence of genetics is on the physical abilities not the technicalities of a sport. We don't win in hockey anymore because it has become a power game. As long as it was dribble and finesse related stuff we were baaps in it. Similarly we don't do great in football because it requires superior strength. However we seem to do well in finesse related sports...things that need good reflexes, hand-eye coordination like Badminton, TT (we have some good talent in both sports), even carrom (if that is a sport).

[Crookbond]

It's hilarious to see you guys debate this. Look around you' date=' how many pools do you see? How many swimming/basketball/sprinting coaches and facilities do you see? India[b'] does not have a sporting culture. End of story. My son plays soccer, baseball, track and basketball. He can play pickup games anytime he wants. He knows how to swim since the age of 3 because there are pools all over the place. Where in India are there access to facilities at a grassroot level? No where. How can anybody expect anyone to learn, let along, excell, in any sport without any cultural emphasis? Heck, there are more cricket grounds in a 30 mile radius from me than the entirety of South India. And i live in the US. :hysterical:

Absolutely! I remember how Imran Khan mentioned that when his plane was landing in Sydney, Australia he could see many grounds and he couldn't even spot one such in India or Pakistan for miles. We even have a proverb for it Kheloge kudoge to honge kharab, padhoge likhoge to banoge nawab.

Brazil has many other sports that are extremely popular. Volleyball for example. England has a strong following in Formula 1 (more than cricket), snooker/billiards are followed pretty regularly. Cycling and many other olympic games has a good strong following too. China is fast becoming the largest market for every game from NBA to Football (both soccer and NFL), even baseball. To say TT and badminton is all they watch is ridiculous. Only in India do we watch ONLY cricket. Heck we were watching cricket even when we were world champions in hockey.

You are counting the anoraks here. Brazil is very much like India - football dominates the rest like beach volleyball are comparable to other sports in India. For other countries too - it is just one or two sports. I asked some of my friends at NZ and they said they only follow Rugby and Cricket. So each country can only have 1 or 2 sports which define them. In India's case it is cricket and majority of them love watching cricket - I don't see any thing to be embarrassed or shameful about it.

[Prakat]

Agree with you. I don't understand this fascination about what the rest of the world thinks are popular sports. Also, we watch sports where we are generally good at. When we were the powerhouses in hockey, it was a popular sport. Cricket's popularity started growing since the 70s prior to which cricket was restricted to the metros and middle / upper class viewers. Apart from cricket we have not been seriously good in any other sport in the last two decades. Badminton's popularity rose and fell with Padukone and Gopichand's achievements. I hope things change with Saina Nehwal...I hope we find someone of her caliber soon enough to keep us engaged. On the other hand Tennis remains a cosmopolitan sport despite Lee-Hesh. In fact, cricket is probably the second most followed team sport on the planet behind Football (the one that is played with the foot). Chalo apna population ka kuch toh fayda hua

Ya, if it weren't for our population skewing the numbers cricket wouldn't really figure anywhere. As it is, I brought up that point because two posters including khota mentioned that we watch cricket because it is watchable and that we would watch something else if it was equally exciting to watch. That's when it became relevant to mention the fact about cricket not being inherently a watchable sport. We started liking it because of a series of events and forces at play. We got to play our former colonial masters (unquenched blood-lust from an almost timid regime change from 1947), the post-imperialist policy of growing the sport in commonwealth countries by organizing tours, a chance to engage in proxy wars with Padosis etc. India would never have developed a taste for the game if the British didn't try hard enough. Then winning the WC took it up by a few hundred times. So, you don't have to care if 90% of cultures don't care for cricket, but let's not claim that it is in and of by itself a viewer-friendly sport. I don't need to have a dog in the game to enjoy tennis, badminton, BB, VB, TT, squash or football.

[Crookbond]

Here's an excellent point made by Max Fisher, Associate editor of "The Atlantic" http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/neither-the-will-nor-the-cash-why-india-wins-so-few-olympic-medals/260693/

But there's also the economic safety net that makes it easier for Western (or Japanese or South Korean) would-be Olympians to take a chance on athletics. If an American amateur gymnast spends a few years deemphasizing school so she can labor toward her dream of a gold medal and it doesn't work out, she still has a good shot at a middle class life. But if her Indian equivalent does the same, she may never recover from all those hours she didn't spend on education or job training, making a middle class life less likely for either her or her children.

Here's another one about hockey

Even Field Hockey, historically India's greatest strength at the Olympics, is a reminder that gold, silver, and bronze all cost paper. Between 1928 and 1968, India won all but two of the field hockey gold medals; the other two went to breakaway Pakistan. (West Germany won in 1972, with Pakistan and India coming in second and third.) But, in 1976, the Olympics switched from natural turf to synthetic, which is far more expensive. All the Indian players who practiced on fields and grass patches were learning skills no longer suited to international competition, and only the communities with the money and will to build a synthetic field could train viable contenders. India has won only a single field hockey medal in the 40 years since it last competed on natural turf, priced out of a sport that had once brought it so much Olympic glory.

[Prakat]

That is a great point. A high GDP and social safety nets let's youngsters take chances, gives them the luxury of devoting hours to a pursuit which may not have any breadwinning potential. Just check out the thousands of hours worth of skateboarding videos on youtube by American teenagers for proof.

[Crookbond]

Just in case - if people are interested in reading a more scientific argument, please read Why Do Some Countries Win More Olympic Medals? Lessons for Social Mobility and Poverty Reduction [1]. [1] http://sanford.duke.edu/krishna/documents/EPW_krishna_haglund_Olympics.pdf

[rageaddict]

Winning Gold medals is not going to popularize any sport to such an extent that they would become National passtime. Australia , for example have been winning olympic Gold medals past few events , but ask an average aussie about their favourite sport and they would name ' AFL ' which isnt played anywhere outside Australia . They are not going to dump Afl and start following water polo or badminton if some Aussie wins a gold in these events .

[Vijay.Sharma]

Ya, if it weren't for our population skewing the numbers cricket wouldn't really figure anywhere. As it is, I brought up that point because two posters including khota mentioned that we watch cricket because it is watchable and that we would watch something else if it was equally exciting to watch. That's when it became relevant to mention the fact about cricket not being inherently a watchable sport. We started liking it because of a series of events and forces at play. We got to play our former colonial masters (unquenched blood-lust from an almost timid regime change from 1947), the post-imperialist policy of growing the sport in commonwealth countries by organizing tours, a chance to engage in proxy wars with Padosis etc. India would never have developed a taste for the game if the British didn't try hard enough. Then winning the WC took it up by a few hundred times. So, you don't have to care if 90% of cultures don't care for cricket, but let's not claim that it is in and of by itself a viewer-friendly sport. I don't need to have a dog in the game to enjoy tennis, badminton, BB, VB, TT, squash or football.

I never said it is a spectator friendly sport although T20 is changing things a bit. I maintain that the amount of viewership for cricket (or any sport) in India is directly proportional to the success and achievements we have had in it. Hockey did not become unpopular overnight. People steadily lost interest in the sport because we steadily declined in it. Of course it coincided with India improving drastically in another sport - cricket. Like I mentioned earlier, a part of the population in India has even gained interest sporadically in Badminton when Padukone, Gopichand succeeded. And now there is more interest in the sport ever since Saina Nehwal has succeeded...little girls want to emulate her. It seems like a chicken and egg case but if you look closely enough, it isn't. When it comes to viewership and success it is not a chicken-egg situation. Viewership depends upon success and achievements but it is not the other way around. If we could create champions by just watching a sport then we should have had fast bowlers of the quality of Waz and Marshall or even half decent singles Tennis players. Every sport will have its fans...so while there might be a Lurker who would enjoy the technicalities of a wrestling match, someone like me would only be interested in the game when the Olympics come around and if an Indian is fighting. I don't know if me watching the game would improve the chances of the said wrestler. It is a very subjective thing to define - spectator sport. Just like beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder so does the idea of what is a watchable sport.

[f.b.m]

A sport is as valuable as the entertainment and enjoyment that it provides to people(both while playing and watching). The subjectivity of this seems to be lost here.

[Prakat]

I will have to disagree with you there. What constitutes spectator sport is pretty much well defined. It is according to these known parameters that cricket is being modified and we have it in the currently popular formats (ODIs and T20s). Cricket was transformed into a spectator sport from the top-down. Not because players were falling dead from sheer fatigue after five days of play.

[India-KXIP fan]

Dexter, hockey was not played on turf 40 years ago. It was about 35, India didn't win 76' but won the next one in 80'. Then India won CWC in 83' and then no one played. Since then we have been poor. The national team gets turf to practice Im sure. The team in 80 adapted and won gold... We have genetics but no one plays. You could be right though they should make turfs everywhere so kids adapt at a young age. Gora's probably got jealous of India and Pakistan dominance. Hockey is much slower and skillful on grass, was great to watch even on tele from what my parents tell me.

[Tiger80]

What are you talking about 90% of Olympic sports are not spectator friendly? Atleast paraphrase such statements with a - FOR ME - as in - 90% of Olympics sports are not spectator friendly FOR ME. And you really should research on what "90%" of the modern world thinks of cricket by the way.

What I mean is very large number of Olympic sports cannot draw large number of spectators or create their own private leagues .May be genuine sports lovers do like Olympic sports but large number of people around the world just watch 3-4 sports for which they go crazy, become extremely happy or sad when their teams win or loses and unfortunately majority of Olympic sports are not in that list. And Yes test cricket is not a spectator friendly sport that's why its not so popular in world,but look at T20.It has arrived on stage just few years back and its popularity is growing day by day even when there is lot of crticism from test criicket fanatics and former players. BTW here is an american article that also say that American also don't care about Olympics sports for 4 years

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20120725/why-do-we-like-the-olympics/ I'm not being cranky. It's just that most of the most popular Olympic sports are the groundhog games. Swimming, gymnastics and track & field come out every four years, see their shadow and go right back underground where nobody pays any attention to them for another four years. Can you even name a gymnast? Okay, track and swimming -- maybe you know Usain Bolt and certainly Michael Phelps, but that's slim pickin's for two weeks in what's supposed to be a celebrity-driven world.

[punjabi_khota]

^Well that SI writer doesn't have good friends like Lurker, hence lack of knowledge of gymnastic names

[exams]

where is pakistan??