So, why does India not win at sporting events like the Olympics?

Two summers ago, against the backdrop of soccer's World Cup mania, I commented on how India rarely blips in the global sports radar.  As with anything else, here too it is awfully difficult understanding India!  We could come up with a gazillion explanations for why not many athletes emerge from a country with a billion people.  All those explanations will sound good and none of those explanations will sound good.  That is India for you.

But, people do attempt to offer explanations.  After all, it is one tempting puzzle.  Unless one is as determined as Ulysses was in order to avoid succumbing to the call of the sirens, well, the topic of India's flame-outs at the Olympics and other events is sheer entrapment.

I liked how this author deftly managed this topic:

The obvious question -- why does India, despite a population of over one billion, field so few medalists? --  is as frequently asked as it is difficult to answer. There's no consensus, no obvious explanation, no single unified theory of Indian Olympic under-performance. Though there are certainly some factors particular to India that might explain this trend, this story might say as much about the better-performing countries and their ability to exploit certain advantages that India lacks.

See how he quickly broadened the questions to more than merely about India? :)

All the reference in that piece to field hockey reminds me of India's glorious past in the game.  Of course, we referred to it as hockey, without the "field" prefix because, after all, there was no ice anywhere around for us to even remotely imagine any other hockey.

One of the scars I have in my shin is from playing hockey, back in perhaps the ninth grade.  My classmate Ravikumar swung the stick to hit the ball hard.  He did dispatch the ball.  But then he got my shin too.

Blood, sweat, and tears, is how I played hockey, because I was far from athletic :)

Anyway, in my way, way, younger days, when I had lots and lots of hair on my head and it was all black, I keenly followed the news about India's hockey team.  Even now, I can recall the radio commentary (yes, no television at that time!): "Govinda, Govinda, Govinda, gooooooaaaaaallll")

There was one memorable match, towards the end of my undergrad days.  By then, the Indian team was already in doldrums. It was India v. West Germany. India was down four goals, and the Germans were so certain that they would win that they eased up.

And then there was a player who displayed all the effort that we love to see in all the sportspeople.  Well, in everybody in every walk of life. The guy scored one, and then another, and another, and in a matter of few minutes, the game was tied. Even! Germany couldn't manufacture anything more and the match that was so much in their favor ended in a draw.

Google helps me out with the name of that player: Pargat Singh.

It was almost as if that was the last attempt by the dying Indian hockey team.  Since then, of course, I have wandered away, mentally and geographically,  Following any news about India's hockey is strictly because of the news junkie that I am, and there is no emotion invested in any match.

Thus, no blood nor sweat nor tears over the news that India's hockey has sunk to new lows at the Olympics:

India, who play Belgium in their final Pool B fixture on Tuesday, will finish last in the group irrespective of the result of this match and will then have to play the bottom-place team in the other pool in the playoff for the 11th and 12th positions.

India are the only team not to have secured a point so far in the ongoing Olympic Games hockey competition, while all others in their group have four points or more. Even an Indian victory over Belgium, who are determined to move up the rankings, will leave India at the bottom.

At the bottom? Seriously?

London was the venue where the hockey team won independent India’s first sporting honour by winning the gold medal at the 1948 Olympics.

Balbir Singh, the centre-forward who won three Olympic gold medals as a member of the Indian teams in 1948, 1952 and 1956 editions, came to the Olympic hockey arena to support the Indian team against South Korea, but like thousands of other supporters left the venue disappointed at India’s performance.

It was not the glory of the 1948 Olympic gold medal, but the dejection of the 1986 World Cup at the British capital that has arrived on the horizon. ...

This will be the lowest position in the Olympics for eight-time gold medallists India, whose previous lowest was the eighth-place finish at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

The low-country with a population of 10 million will finish ahead of a eight-time gold medalist with 100 times the population!  Explain that at your own peril!

Meanwhile, there is always the reliable New Yorker :)