China knows why India is failing to shine at Olympics – and the reasons are...

New Delhi: Being the world's second most populous country (at over 1.25 billion), India's performance at the Olympics has rarely been something to write home about.

On the other hand, China, with the highest population, has been striving hard to increase its medals tally and has been successful at it – it won't be long before the Dragon becomes the sport's superpower too.

Now, the Chinese media has come up with an analysis on what is ailing the Indian sports and why we are failing to shine at the Olympics – the world's greatest sports gathering.

And the reasons, according to the Chinese media, are:

- Lack of infrastructure

- Poor health

- Poverty

- Girls not being allowed to participate in sports

- Boys being coaxed into becoming doctors and engineers

- Popularity of cricket over other sports

- India’s fading hockey glory

- Lack of information about Olympics in rural areas

The reasons were listed out in a report in the Hindustan Times.

“India has 1,200,000,000 people, and is the second populous country following China. But India’s getting scarce medals in the Olympic Games. Why? Counting by population, India ranks the last in Olympic medal number, India got only six medals in the 2012 Olympics, while none were gold,” an article on Toutiao.com stated.

“Counting the recent three (2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London) Olympics, if the medals were given equally to the whole population, India ranks last,” the article said further.

“Large gap between rich and poor has made it hard for the poor people even to make a living, let along saving the energy for sports practice. Adding that the government has only little investment on the sports infrastructure, the mass sports and competitive sports are both lagging behind in India,” it added.

Toutiao.com’s article even blamed cricket: “Cricket is the national sport of India. Indians love it so much that it has been religion-like. In India, those who don’t like cricket could be regarded as pagan. Because of this, many young people don’t have the courage to receive other sports training. Indians love cricket and are proficient at it, but sadly, cricket is not among the Olympic events, Indians can’t win a gold medal with it.”

A write-up on Chinanews.com blamed the Indian culture and said: “The Indian culture has hindered local sports development. Most families want their children to become doctors or accountants. Sports talents would be persuaded by family and even neighbours, stopping them from taking part in high-level competitions.”