Why Do Some countries Win More Olympic Medals? lessons for Social Mobility and poverty reduction

Not everyone in our country has equal access to competitive sports. Many are not effective participants on account of ignorance or disinterest, disability or deterrence. This analysis considers two separate arenas for enlarging the pool of effective participants, one related to sports and other to social mobility. In both cases, this paper finds the plausibility of an explanation based on effective participation rates. It examines what country characteristics are associated with greater success in the Olympics at the macro level by considering indicators such as health, education, and especially three variables of information and access (road length per unit of land area, the share of urban population and radios per capita). It also analyses the opportunities and achievements in the villages of two states, Karnataka and Rajasthan. Compared to its share in the world’s population, India’s share of Olympic medals is abysmally low. In the 2004 Olympic Games, for example, India won only one medal. Turkey, which has less than one-tenth of India’s population, won 10 times as many medals, and Thailand, which has roughly 6 per cent of India’s population, won eight times as many medals. India’s one-sixth share in the world’s population translated into a 1/929 share in 2004 Olympic medals. While Australia won 2.46 medals per one-million population and Cuba won 2.39 medals per one-million population, India brought up the bottom of this international chart, winning a mere 0.0009 medals per one-million population. Nigeria, next lowest, had 18 times this number, winning 0.015 medals per one-million population.1 Why does the average Indian count for so little? What prevents the translation of India’s huge number of people into a proportionate – or even near-proportionate – number of Olympic medals? The gross domestic product certainly matters, as previous analyses have indicated [Bernard and Busse 2004], but something else also seems to be making a difference, given that Cuba, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Uzbekistan – countries not known for having high average incomes – have won many more medals than India, despite having a far smaller national population. Why do 10 million Indians win less than one-hundredth of one Olympic medal, while 10 million Uzbeks won 4.7 Olympic medals? In this article, we explore the concept of effectively partici­ pating population, arguing that not everyone in a country has equal access to competitive sports – or for that matter, to other arenas, including the political and economic ones. Many are not effective participants on account of ignorance or disinterest, disability or deterrence. Amartya Sen (2002: 13-14) remarks, in the context of the economy, that “the ability to participate depends on a variety of enabling social conditions. It is hard to participate in the expansionary process of the market mechanism (especially in a world of globalised trade), if one is illiterate and unschooled, or if one is weakened by undernourishment and ill-health, or if social barriers... discrimination...no capital...no access...exclude substantial parts of humanity from fair economic participation”. Barriers of different kinds can limit the pool of effective participants. Enabling social conditions help deepen and widen this pool. In the arena of sports similarly, only a fraction of all potential athletes in any country constitutes the pool of active contestants. Olympians are drawn, not from the entire population of a country, but only from the share that is effectively participating. The authors acknowledge with gratitude the comments received from Marc Bellemare and from anonymous referees. The usual disclaimers apply.