India is a terrible place economics aside. They commit more environmental crimes than any other country, straight up dirty and no care for the planet. There is also no social mobility and terrible air quality hence why distance runners in India will never be good staying in their own country. They want to escape, rightfully so. I love the people though. Hard workers.
India is promising only due to the high use of performance enhancing drugs. Many athletes there think these are essential to good performances and are told this by coaches/established athletes.
Khan has doped in the past, and has also corrected his age.
Look into the multiple instances in popular media of Indian athletes trying to lose races or drop out to avoid drugs testing. Talk to any Indian athlete about training and they will enquire about supplements and medicine for performance.
Are you serious dude? As a fellow European this is embarassing. "Both developing countries with weak public infrastructure" We're talking about a comparison of $2400 GDP per capita to $76k GDP per capita. Turn your f***ing brain on Toblerone boy
Btw India has like 1 billion people and can't even muster a gold medal at most any Olympics. The more interesting thread to make, is how a country with so many people is so insanely unathletic.
Did you miss Neeraj Chopra the past few years? He doesn't seem insanely unathletic to me. You should be more worried about how Germany is doing in track and field to be honest...
Are you serious dude? As a fellow European this is embarassing. "Both developing countries with weak public infrastructure" We're talking about a comparison of $2400 GDP per capita to $76k GDP per capita. Turn your f***ing brain on Toblerone boy
Btw India has like 1 billion people and can't even muster a gold medal at most any Olympics. The more interesting thread to make, is how a country with so many people is so insanely unathletic.
Did you miss Neeraj Chopra the past few years? He doesn't seem insanely unathletic to me. You should be more worried about how Germany is doing in track and field to be honest...
There must be something in Indian blood that makes them all inherently good at spear throwing
That is laughable that you think the US is a developing country and can draw comparison to India. Utterly detached actually. The 3rd world levels of poverty are the deluge of illegal migrants, similar to European countries, and is only present in cities like New York, Chicago, LA. The average impoverished US citizen is sitting lavish compared to an impoverished Indian. And the infrastructure in India is a middle schoolers science fair project in the US. India's life expectancy is 67 years, US is 76. Where do you live that 76 is low? You said it best, your experience is limited, EXTREMELY limited.
Switzerland.
I think you have difficulties with your reading perception. I said that my experience of Indian people is limited. I have however lived in a number of different countries. I've only been to the US twice, on holiday, and I was shocked at the levels of poverty in rural America, and how dirty and uncared for many areas of cities were. Of course, I've met rich, well educated Americans but the US simply has levels which in my country we associate with developing nations. Life expectancy not over 80 years is low. Here, it is over 84 years.
The average life expectancy in the EU is 80, meaning that numerous European countries have what you define as low life expectancy, i.e. below 80. Are they developing countries?
You come from one the wealthiest, most developed countries in Europe. I, from Norway, also do. I am also impressed by the level of poverty in rural parts of the United States, from a Scandinavian perspective. But I also know how impoverished and rough middle-class Americans would find parts of Brussels, Marseille, Sicily etc. Heck, send a suburbian American to Duisburg, Germany, and they will feel very uncomfortable and, in turn, superior. Don't project Swissness on Europe...its not very culturally conscious or nuanced.
India is promising only due to the high use of performance enhancing drugs. Many athletes there think these are essential to good performances and are told this by coaches/established athletes.
Khan has doped in the past, and has also corrected his age.
Look into the multiple instances in popular media of Indian athletes trying to lose races or drop out to avoid drugs testing. Talk to any Indian athlete about training and they will enquire about supplements and medicine for performance.
Any proof of this or is this the usual LRC nonsense?
20 years ago I had never heard of anyone from India running well over middle/long distance events.
It seems that is all changing for the country with one of the highest populations on the planet. Curious as to what the change has been for this to occur.
Coaching or more opportunities for athletes to participate in track and field.
not sure how this thread descended into white man's burden style faux racism but in any case
current indian success is pretty much only because of their massive population, which is gonna result in some pretty good runners, one way or another. there are still massive obstacles that stand in the way of indian success in running.
1. culture that doesn't value athletics (well, besides cricket)
2. no funding for athletes
3. no facilities or equipment (people take running shoes and tracks for granted)
4. widespread poverty (people need to focus more on staying alive instead of leisure activities)
also, I guess this technically helps more than it hurts (at least for now), but india has a huge doping problem. it's gonna be a big deal a few years down the line when indian athletes start finding more international success and people start asking questions. that 4x400 at budapest last year was just the tip of the iceberg.
India is a hellhole. There is only hope for athletes who can escape from that pigsty.
Curious as to why you are so racist. I hope that doesn't work out for you and at some point you grow up. Don't be a jerk!
Actually, ironically, the Indians are far more racist than whites who are generally not racist at all in modern society. There's been documented stories of Indians (from the country of India) being promoted to a management position in the USA and promptly firing all the whites and hiring only Indians.
Not sure India the country because of brutal hot weather but I always wondered why they didn't have distance presence in the past. So many of them are so skinny. Right up there w/ Africans. Even skinnier than the Japanese.
Curious as to why you are so racist. I hope that doesn't work out for you and at some point you grow up. Don't be a jerk!
Actually, ironically, the Indians are far more racist than whites who are generally not racist at all in modern society. There's been documented stories of Indians (from the country of India) being promoted to a management position in the USA and promptly firing all the whites and hiring only Indians.
India is hardly a distance or track powerhouse. but they are improving rapidly. Nearly all their track and field records have been broken in the last 5 years.
The government has been sponsoring Olympic athletes lately, not something they did previously, and providing coaching. This is the primary reason for improvement. As someone mentioned a group is in Colorado Springs currently training.
The conversation often focuses on how India has so many people, but can’t produce Olympic athletes. however very few Indian children actually ever participate in sports or have the opportunity to train at a high level, due to lack of money and resources. the potential is there…Avinash Sable is a world level steepler, Chopra, Sreesankar (long jumper) despite having a small pool of participants. TJ Shankar won the NCAA high jump title a couple years ago.
India’s greatest success lately has been in wrestling…despite probably only having several thousand ever participate, all from the same area of India (Haryana), they have won several Olympic medals. However I suspect they will have difficulty this year due to the wrestling leadership corruption and lack of depth.