r2i forum

Imissindia;463055We would probably get into top 10 by around 2024 (maybe 2020) but I don't think we would get ahead of China.

Any pics to substantiate your claims? Please do not post any CWG pics. They bring back bad memories.

returning_indian;463123Any pics to substantiate your claims? Please do not post any CWG pics. They bring back bad memories.

What do you mean the pictures to substantiate the claim? What kind of pictures would prove that?
I was simply stating that India is unlikely to beat China in the medals tally as China was number one at the last Olympics and India will hopefully keep improving in the medals tally each time and might get into the top 10 by 2024 but is unlikely to get ahead of China in this field.

Imissindia;463343I was simply stating that India is unlikely to beat China in the medals tally as China was number one at the last Olympics and India will hopefully keep improving in the medals tally each time and might get into the top 10 by 2024 but is unlikely to get ahead of China in this field.

If you feel hope does not have to be based on realistic things, then one can hope or wish for anything. There would be nothing to disagree or argue about. But when one says there is hope to get into top 10 of Olympic medals tally based on something (facilities, economic progress), then I feel that hope is futile, you might as well hope to better China/US. I wish to see that day as well.

Take any sport at a Olympic level, and see how much the people of that country are behind that sport. Look at any high school athletic meet, swim meet, and see the levels at which kids compete. The mentality of parents, coaches, and the media in covering such school meets. After all the hope should be based on these kids who will go on to get us those golds right? What difference do you see here? How many parents are taking early retirement to have their kids work with world class coaches with a hope of making them the best in the world. Being the best in the world takes a lot of sacrifice, passion, and commitment (by the player, family and society). Eg. Kenya and Jamaica for athletics. GDP means very little, or nothing.

^^^
You are right GG. We all can hope India to better US/China but we all know 'hope is not a strategy'!!!

GutsyGibbon;463359If you feel hope does not have to be based on realistic things, then one can hope or wish for anything. There would be nothing to disagree or argue about. But when one says there is hope to get into top 10 of Olympic medals tally based on something (facilities, economic progress), then I feel that hope is futile, you might as well hope to better China/US. I wish to see that day as well.

Take any sport at a Olympic level, and see how much the people of that country are behind that sport. Look at any high school athletic meet, swim meet, and see the levels at which kids compete. The mentality of parents, coaches, and the media in covering such school meets. After all the hope should be based on these kids who will go on to get us those golds right? What difference do you see here? How many parents are taking early retirement to have their kids work with world class coaches with a hope of making them the best in the world. Being the best in the world takes a lot of sacrifice, passion, and commitment (by the player, family and society). Eg. Kenya and Jamaica for athletics. GDP means very little, or nothing.

This is really not something that important for India or for individual people in India.
I was simply replying to a poster who had stated that India should try to beat China at the Olympics. I simply said that we are unlikely to ever beat them as China was number one the last time and that the most we can hope for is to get into top 10 by 2024. It might or might not happen and I don't think it makes much difference to me or to the Indian people. If you look at 2004, India was at number 65. It improved to number 50 in 2008 and after the exposure to CWG, our good performance there and the better facilities now available, I was forecasting a similar rise to about number 35 this year. The point is that we will continue to improve our rankings with each coming Olympics- whether we get to the top 10 or the top 20 is not the point. As our country progresses, we have more money and better facilities. Even if just 5% of the people had access to better facilities, that is a considerable amount of people and therefore we will get ahead of other smaller nations and join the top 10 or 15 even if we are towards the bottom of this list.

As far as the facilities or economic progress are concerned, I don't see why you're calling it a futile hope. On both fields we have made tremendous progress and will be much further ahead by each passing year.

This is my take on sports and political/diplomatic influence of the country in the world:
Though I am not saying that sports and medals at Olympic make a nation more respected/influential at the world stage, there is a co-relation between two. Look at all the powerful/influential nations around the world they are all at the top of the medals tally at Olympic (their actual rank may not directly reflect their power but they sure are among the top, vice-a-versa is not necessarily true though). No statistical/scientific study to support this but just my observation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics_medal_table

Top 10 at 2008 summer Olympics.

[TABLE="class: wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"]
[TR]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #F2F2F2"]Rank[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #F2F2F2"]Nation[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #FFD700"]Gold[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: silver"]Silver[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #CC9966"]Bronze[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #F2F2F2"]Total[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #CCCCFF"]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] China (CHN)[/TD]
[TD]51[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]28[/TD]
[TD]100[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] United States (USA)[/TD]
[TD]36[/TD]
[TD]38[/TD]
[TD]36[/TD]
[TD]110[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Russia (RUS)[/TD]
[TD]23[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]29[/TD]
[TD]73[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Great Britain (GBR)[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]47[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Germany (GER)[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]41[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Australia (AUS)[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]46[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] South Korea (KOR)[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]31[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Japan (JPN)[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]25[SUP][13][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Italy (ITA)[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]27[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] France (FRA)[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]41[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


Another interesting fact. Following pic shows countries with at least one Gold medal in yellow. African continent as almost non-yellow. Its mostly green, which represents countries that didn't get any medal.

There was politics involved in 100 m ladies trials.
Tarmoh thought she finished third and deserved the final spot and took a victory lap too. But NBC had other ideas as they are branding Felix as face of American short distance runners and wanted her to qualify in 100m sprint. (She is more experienced, more photogenic, can embrace the hype etc), so the cameras came in picture to capture the finish to the latest granular detail and officials said it was a tie between Tarmoh and Felix and they need to run once more to break the tie.
http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/07/03/tarmoh-concedes-olympic-spot-in-100-to-felix-195455451/?test=olymp
Tarmoh is a first timer in such big stage, so refused to run this 'made for TV' trial yesterday. Photo finish shows her leg/arms/head are ahead of Felix. USATF should not have played politics but sadly no nation is above such politics.

^^^ I heard it on NPR last evening. But they obviously did not talk about NBC angle. So are you saying that there was no tie? And if there was, what are USATF rules to resolve it?

R2MyOldWorld;463503^^^ I heard it on NPR last evening. But they obviously did not talk about NBC angle. So are you saying that there was no tie? And if there was, what are USATF rules to resolve it?

The link I posted above shows the photo finish and in that, Tarmoh is ahead by a 1/100 th or 1/1000 of a sec as her leg/head/arms are ahead of Felix. Officials announced her a 3rd place winner first but what happened after was a ugly nexus between sports/TV which pays millions to get rights and then try to build dramatic moments to recover that. Some athletes embrace such hype but Tarmoh is considered as a nice girl with no airs and actually has avoided face time, so could not take the hype surrounding the second trial. Especially if she can't perform in Olympics in London, then finger pointing could have been brutal to her as though she robbed Felix.

USATF is one of the corrupt organizations in aiding dopers/ covering up/ hyping up athletes which the TV wants but such stories are usually buried and are put in back burner when US wins boat load of medals.

R2MyOldWorld;463493This is my take on sports and political/diplomatic influence of the country in the world:
Though I am not saying that sports and medals at Olympic make a nation more respected/influential at the world stage, there is a co-relation between two. Look at all the powerful/influential nations around the world they are all at the top of the medals tally at Olympic (their actual rank may not directly reflect their power but they sure are among the top, vice-a-versa is not necessarily true though). No statistical/scientific study to support this but just my observation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics_medal_table

Top 10 at 2008 summer Olympics.

[TABLE="class: wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"]
[TR]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #F2F2F2"]Rank[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #F2F2F2"]Nation[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #FFD700"]Gold[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: silver"]Silver[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #CC9966"]Bronze[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #F2F2F2"]Total[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #CCCCFF"]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] China (CHN)[/TD]
[TD]51[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]28[/TD]
[TD]100[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] United States (USA)[/TD]
[TD]36[/TD]
[TD]38[/TD]
[TD]36[/TD]
[TD]110[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Russia (RUS)[/TD]
[TD]23[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]29[/TD]
[TD]73[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Great Britain (GBR)[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]47[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Germany (GER)[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]41[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Australia (AUS)[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]46[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] South Korea (KOR)[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]31[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Japan (JPN)[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]25[SUP][13][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] Italy (ITA)[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]27[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD="align: left"] France (FRA)[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]41[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


Another interesting fact. Following pic shows countries with at least one Gold medal in yellow. African continent as almost non-yellow. Its mostly green, which represents countries that didn't get any medal.

Exactly my point. As we get more and more developed and more influential, our medals tally would also go up.