@Aussie Bruin
India is a sleeping giant and I mean giant.
Given a population of 1.4 BILLION, they could have developed an Olympic sports program but they show no interest.
100%. The IOC getting China to take the Olympics seriously has been huge for them. Created some problems too, of course, but no doubt viewed as worth it for the financial and prestige gains. India has nearly as much potential. But at present they have some half-decent hockey teams, a handful of shooters and field athletes, and that's about it. Zero gold and only 6 medals in total for a country of that size is near unbelievable.
The challenges are that cricket so dominates their sporting landscape, and, while their economy is growing, they still have huge problems with poverty and unequal distribution of wealth. Reality is money=medals and getting their government to invest the cash and effort required to produce a much wider range of athletes outside their national passion is going to be a hard sell. They hosted the Commonwealth Games (RIP) in 2010 and while not terrible it didn't go so well and seems to have done nothing to kick on their domestic sporting scene. I would fear that if cricket were added to the Olympics it would definitely draw Indian interest but that interest would be narrow.
Terrific games for Australia in the end. Made my early doubts look silly. 4th overall, a new record gold medal haul (18), best total medal count for a games not held in Australia. All that from a nation of just 26 million people, our athletes have done us very proud. Of course New Zealand getting 10 gold from just a 5 million population is even better proportionally, but we won't talk too much about that.....
