money for food

I was surprised to learn that India, the second most populous country in the world, just got their first individual gold in the Olympics. So yes, it’s not really the number of people you have (but of course it doesn’t hurt that you have a big pool of talent.) China and US being the 1st and 3rd in terms of population, respectively are runaway leaders in the medal tally. This makes me wonder how good the sports programs of these nations are. What are they doing right?

The United States, the perennial Olympics winner, has a US Sports Academy. Because of their dismal showing in the 1972 Munich Olympics, the government saw the need to establish the academy. But surprisingly, the government provides only modest indirect support to their star athletes in the national team. Most of the US athletes are products of local clubs and school teams. Michael Phelps for instance, trained in the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. Their formula works.

What about the host country China? Besides the mind-blowing opening ceremony, they certainly prepared for this Olympics. In the 1988 Seoul Olympics, China only won five gold medals. But look at them now (as of press time), they have 43 gold medals, 17 more than the US. A revamped sports program which aimed at developing very young athletes and very lucrative bonuses and job offers await the triumphant athletes.

To be able to run 100 meters in 10 seconds, you need to actually prepare for more than 10 years. For one of our athletes to swim 100 meters in 51 seconds, he needs a lot of support not only from the government but from the community as well. But before we can do that, we should have food on the table first.