Olympics Aftermath: a statistical overview

India sent 83 athletes to this year's Olympics, largest contingent so far for the country which returned with 6 medals, which too is the highest number of medals we could get thus far. Let's take nothing away from the athletes who gave their best and fought hard but it is not a satisfactory result  

India is at the bottom when you look at medal to population ratio. 1.2 billion are represented by mere 83 athletes who bag 6 medals and stand 55th in the medal tally.

To analyse this problem, we traverse the nation dividing by the states.

Here's a graphical analysis about the athletes we sent, the sport they compete in and where they belong. (Hockey is not considered in the study)

Here's what I make of the study:-

· Gujarat, MP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya , Arunachal Pradesh, J&K, Tripura, Tamil Nadu , Mizoram did not have a single athlete from their state.

· Maharashtra, UP, Rajasthan, Orissa, Jharkhand should have had more athletes in the Olympics based on their population.

· That implies that there is something wrong in the sporting infrastructure of these states,  these states need to concentrate on a selected sport or a pool of 2-3 sports rather than investing on a variety of sports. Haryana has lead by example with its boxers and wrestlers.

· States like Haryana, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka are considerably prosperous states compared to others, which shows a clear reflection between a state's development to its sporting culture with Gujarat, Tamil Nadu being exceptions.

The other problem:

· Our strength is Shooting, Wrestling, Boxing, Archery primarily. These sports have a very little share of the total number of medals.

· Not only that we need to improve on the number medals in these sports, we have to look towards Athletics and Aquatics where we are considerably weak not only at world stage but also at Asian and Commonwealth level.

    

 The way forward:

· We have got Commonwealth Games and Asian Games coming in 2014 Glasgow and Incheon respectively.

· In Commonwealth games, we have seen a significant improvement in the last edition compared to its previous edition. In Melbourne India stood 4th with 22 golds whereas we came second (above England) in Delhi-2010 with 38 golds.

· In 2006 Doha Asian games we finished 8th with 10 golds whereas in 2010 Guangzhou we finished 6th with 14 golds.

· The target should be to hold onto the second position in the upcoming Commonwealth games and to break in top 5 in the upcoming Asian games.

· The young talent should be groomed and nurtured properly to make them more competitive at the youth games.

· India was 58th in the 2010 youth Olympics, which is not justifiable for a country who has a very significant percent of youths. This event should be taken seriously in order to build future medal prospects for the country.

Sports minister Ajay Maken said that India targets 25 medals in the 2020 games, it definitely is a realistic goal if we prepare our athletes for long term results. We should target at least 12 medals in Rio 2016. Indian sports has a long way to go in order to be recognized at world stage, let's hope that it is not too far away until India is recognized not only for its Gods, Bollywood, Slumdogs, Cricket but also for its Sporting success at Olympic level. 

Fingers crossed!