There are over a billion people in India. So why havent they had any great runners yet?

One word - Cricket.

It's killed every other sport. Speaking as an Indian, we used to be the world champs in field hockey. Olympic gold medal every time except once from 1928 to 1964.

As an aside, fascinating history of Dhyan Chand - guy was so good that legend is that the Germans broke open his stick to look for magnets. Hitler even offered him a position as colonel in the German army.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhyan_chand#Legends

Now we struggle to qualify for the Olys.

Problem is the money - 99% of the money is in cricket. Every lowly club level folks get paid more in a week than what you would as a runner *if* you win. This guy here makes over 10 million USD a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar

So there is no motivation for anyone to run. Add to this the pollution in the cities, the poverty in the villages, and most importantly, the heat/humidity. Not to mention the overcrowdedness wherever you go. Basically, running ain't meant to be.

Most of the runners have been the Army where at least you get paid something. Running is part of the drill :)

When you have one square yard to move and it's 100 degrees all the time and your water is full of feces, well, it's just not fun to run.

P.T. Usha missed a medal at the Olympics by .01 seconds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Usha

Shiny Abraham-Wilson ran a sub 2 in the 800, pretty good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiny_Wilson

There have been some good athletes.

Also, possibly one of the most prominent Indo-American runners could be Monal Chokshi, multiple All-American at Stanford who also won an NCAA title.

Also the past few years, I have noticed greater interest in tennis in India, possibly because of people like Sania Mirza, Leander Paes, etc.

If cricket were in the Olympics, would the top pros play Olympic Cricket for their countries? Would that be the top tournament or is there something else?

miserable pollution. and, yeah, can't run after eating an indian meal, like that other guy said.

india threw me into a haze of delirium and lack of motivation, which was not a conducive state of mind for training.

dont know cricket wrote:

If cricket were in the Olympics, would the top pros play Olympic Cricket for their countries? Would that be the top tournament or is there something else?

There aren't enough competitive countries to justify it being in the Olympics. The World Cup is the major tournament held every 4 years in which 50-overs-per-side 1-day matches are played.

20-over matches are now being played and have their own tournament though this is far less prestigious. Test cricket (the 5-day version of cricket) has no formal championship tournament but relies on rankings determined by results of matches played.

This guy and the people of his country are Muslim:

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040830/olympics/winners/images/wi12.jpg

sykes wrote:

miserable pollution. and, yeah, can't run after eating an indian meal, like that other guy said.

india threw me into a haze of delirium and lack of motivation, which was not a conducive state of mind for training.

It's all the nutmeg they use.

They did have a 10k guy who ran in 2008 olympics and this year's WCs. PR of 28:0x I believe. He might have beaten Torres last year - but not certain.

Their athletic federation needs to build on it and encourage others to run.

Shivnath Singh finished 11th in the 1976 Olympic Marathon and eventually ran a 2:12 marathon.

Seb Coe's mother is actually half-Indian.

It's largely due to Lack of infrastructure, credible organizations, and programs. What little infrastructure there is in India is overwhelmed by the massive overpopulation. As a result there are incredible amounts of poverty, hunger, and even starvation.

Shivnath Singh was the man.

Spicy lentils. The day after I eat Indian food, which I love, my run is interrupted by several trips into the cornfield. If this happened daily, I'd never run continuously long enough to get in shape. Glad I could help solve your mystery.

I am currently coaching a middle distance runner from India who came to the U.S. three months ago specifically to train for running after finishing his masters degree. He was a top level cricket player, but two knee surgeries ended those pursuits. He took up running less than two years ago at age 22 and ended up with a stress fracture from running all of the time on concrete surfaces in Delhi. With its population of 20 million and terrible pollution he was forced to do much of his training very early in the morning. He said there is no interest in 'Athletics' from the public. Now he is training on trails and does track sessions on a synthetic track. His progress has been remarkable. The average high school here has better facilities than anything he trained on in India. He states what previous posters have noted... all anyone cares about in India in sports is cricket.

I ran against a few people of decent Indian runners in Singapore. They do have some talent but the climate is too hot there. There is no tradition for running among Indians or even most Asians. I think large population do not always tell you that a few good athletes should emerge. Look how many good sprinters come out of Jamaica of good distance runners out of the rift valley.

Whie in Singapore and seeing all these thin slight built Asians (Chinese, Indian, Malaysians), you would think they would all make good distance runners or someone out of the lot might excel. But when we had to go out for PE and run around the field they were so weak and slow. They really lacked any muscle power and cardiovascular capacity. You could have 20 billion Indians and you probably wouldn't get a good runner unless you could take a promising, talented, motivated person and give them the proper environment, training partners, motivation and coaching.

ok I am an indian american runner and I have a few things to say on the topic...

the reason indians might not be as good is simply the same reason why africans are so much better than everyone else GENETICS. im not saying that indians could not have a few good runners but genetically we might not be as capable in any type of athletics as other people. we make up for that in smarts.

also and probably more importantly, culturally indians never really cared much for sports. the emphasis is on education. so people aren't really good runners there because they emphasize other things in their culture.

the first part is nonsense, the second part is the key. culture determines success or failure on the large scale. There is no Indian running culture and a huge Kenyan running culture, despite the fact that both were British colonies and Brits introduced their sports to their colonies (come to think of it, there were a lot of British colonies but few of them have become distance running hotbeds). Now the weather shouldn't be blamed. Plenty of Americans in the South, living in a climate that is hot and humid for much of the year become very good runners. It's true that the South doesn't produce that many distance runners, but it has produced some good ones and obviously it produces a lot of great sprinters. Moreover, there are a lot of people in India living in cooler, mountainous areas, like Jammu Kashmir province, some at considerable altitude. No, it's culture. If it became a national priority, they would produce good runners in just a few years. Look at what China has done after a few years of concentrating on developing athletes. Fifteen years ago who would have said that Chinese could become great NBA players or world record holders in the 110mH?

Ignoring genetics, if a country has 17-20% of all the people in the planet (as India and China do) all other things being equal you'd expect them to have turned up more decent distance runners by now (chinese women apart).

As a reference, Kenya and Ethiopia have 40 and 80 million people respectively, India and China circa 1.2 billion (or about 30 times more).

Its got to be cultural in both cases.