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“The Olympics: Not a sport but an amalgamation of several peculiar sports, each of which only commands your attention every four years, like a dental appointment.”

Such is the casualness that many under-prepared nations, have towards many of the games at Olympics. e.g. have you ever heard of any tournament being held in India for below exotic looking  games:

  • Rhythmic gymnastics
  • Modern pentathlon
  • Synchronised swimming
  • Trampoline
  • Canoe slalom
  • Beach volleyball
  • Cycling –mountain bike

Here, both IOC as well as the national Olympic committee is to be blamed. Before introducing any such exotic games at Olympics, they should first make genuine efforts to popularize the sports in all the member nations.

International quadrennial sports gala called Olympics, which had kicked off with its characteristic fanfare, is going to be culminated today. The event, as always, in no time became a rage amongst media and sports-enthusiasts’ across the world. During entire events, all participating sportsperson felt the heat of the sheer competitiveness and their countrymen waited for those glorious moments to come by, when their heroes would win them a medal. For some country this waiting time remained endlessly long. While for some nations, it was a business-as-usual of getting medals at their will.

Similar to the categorization of nations economically, at Olympics as well, we can think of categorizing the nations in 3 different categories — developed nations (rich haul of medals), developing nations (decent haul of medals) and laggards-nations (poor haul of medals).  Some nations may be categorized as developing when it comes to Olympics performance; however, in socio-economic term they may be a laggard nation (like some of the African countries).

Developed nations are those that finish at top 7 on medal charts (LIKE china, US, Russia, Britain, Germany, Australia, France, Italy, Japan).  Incidentally, majority of them are G-7 members.

Developing nations’ medal kitty remains more or less fixed or certain (like Kenya, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Cuba etc.) thanks to their physiological and environmental advantage. However, Many of these nations are economically backward.

Laggards-nations are those that get medals in an infrequent interval (like once in 2-3 Olympics).On most of the occasions, colour of such medals are black (i.e. bronze). Many of them are categorized as developing nations in its economic performance terms (like India, Mexico, Sweden etc).

Here, we can draw a parallel between Olympics participating nations (say member of IOC) and participating nations in global economy (say member of WTO or other regional trading bodies like NATO, ASEAN, BRICS).

At Olympics all kinds of nations, weak (or call them decently strong) or strong (Strong because of their perennial dominance) would congregate at a common place to compete with each other.

Stronger nations would naturally have an edge over weaker peers and thus they are destined to get more medals.

Weaker nations may be good at some selected sports (e.g. east African nations have generated an aura of invincibility in long and middle distance racing events and west African nations in sprints events) and may win a handful of medals in those selected sports while they may draw a duds in other games.

In the Globalized economic landscape, all the nations that are at advantageous positions in producing/manufacturing any commodity, take part in global trade.

Developed nations that have diversified economy have a competitive edge over weak nations (that are one-crop economy). So developed nations rule the trading arena in most of the sectors, while weaker nations would challenge them in some selected sectors. (Quite similar to what we see at Olympics, isn’t it?)

There are so many raw talents in weaker nations, that when processed properly, can become a medal prospects. On the similar line ,  weaker nations may be having so many raw materials in its nations which would have generated more revenues or helped in nation-building, had it been processed in the country rather than exporting it to other nations.

But such processing efforts ask for availability of funds for transforming a raw talent into potential medal prospect. The availability, of such funds, that makes all the difference. There are some nations ruled by authoritarian regime, who may not give the best of the facilities to their citizens but they may splurge billions in nurturing such talents (Like China and North Korea).

A Canadian newspaper, in 2000, did a survey of progress at the Olympics relative to the financial support a nation provides to its athletes. It created a formula for predicting the number of medals each country would receive if the money spent supporting athletes and their training were evenly distributed by population. A per this survey, China would have 185 medals, Canada 4/5, India 157, and the United States 42. But in reality, China had 58 medals, Canada had 14, India had 1, and the Americans had 94 (in 2000).

Usually at elections, be it US presidency election or legislative assembly election in India, there is a threshold spending limit during the election campaign. All candidates are supposed to keep their total spending amount below this figure. But, at Olympic there is no such pre-defined limit. Any nations or sports individual can spend any amount of money it chooses. Olympics Committee talk a lot about “creating a level playing field” at the Olympics.  While it’s good that they take a note of performance enhancing drugs, but usually less attention is given to a greater effect on Olympic success—the disparity in fund-spent-on-Olympic -preparation by competing countries.

When it comes to the Olympics, it’s natural to think that wealthier nations and athletes would have an advantage over developing ones. For those without hefty sponsorship plans, paying for coaches, physical therapy, travel, accommodations and equipment can be a tremendous burden.  e.g. The new Speedo LZR swimsuit, designed with help from NASA, costs $550 and supposed to only be worn six times before the fabric loses its power.

Isn’t such suit a “form of technological doping”? It is, but who cares about those poor athletes who can ill-afford such swimming suits.

Chinese style of Olympic preparation has drawn flak from many quarters. They use to identify the talents at school level itself. School authorities are asked to keep an eye on any kids (of age group 6-10 yrs) who displays even a decent amount of interest in any games.  Such kids are then sent to special schools where they get strict training (many times they are beaten as well) and are brain-washed. “Winning an Olympic medal for the country” is instilled in them as a single motive of their life. In 2004, china is supposed to have spent around $3B money on Olympic preparations. An estimate says they have around 15000 such training centres. They won 63 medals, so that means one medal cost them 3000/63= 47 millions. This is like a large scale manufacturing factory having final products as unethically and expensively built Olympic-medal-probables.

For authoritarian regime like china and North Korea, spending such an amount on preparation may not be that difficult, but for democratically functioning nations (but not as rich as US) like India spending such an amount may be difficult.

Such disparities in Olympic preparations must be addressed first. Below ways can be adopted to bring all nations on equal-footing:

  • Instead of offering financial grants to some poorer countries, which has proved ineffective, the IOC should create Olympics training camps for each sport in all member nations.
  • Those individuals (or nation as a whole) who wish to train on their own must adhere to maximum expense limit.  There should be proper audit of such expenses by some independent agencies.
  • Unethical training camps should be banned.
  • Any special costumes, shoes or any other equipment which gives an unfair advantage to one individual should be banned.
  • Keep changing the rules of the game at frequent interval so that no any nations dominate the game for long time.

Unless these things are implemented, Olympic medal tally would remain predictable and it would be understood as a showcase of money power. Remember, Olympic Games are for the world and all nations must get fair chance to get qualified and to compete with others at the Olympic.