Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevindeasis | Hacker News Reader

What makes third world countries poor performers at the olympics?

Many reasons but one is money for equipment. Things like running and boxing have very low barrier of entry. While a healthy human can run anywhere for free (I guess preferably with some decent shoes) you need a modern very expensive bicycle to compete in that sport just as an example. Also a large middle class that has working parents who can support and spend money on a child to train and learn is a big part. Many poorer nations children young/adults need to be working and not training for the Olympics. Overall it's disposable income and disposable time being the crucial factor.

One factor that has not been noted by others is that a common route for mid-tier athletes who actually reside in some of the bigger countries to get to the Olympics is to have parents from a small country. As long as you make the qualification limit for the sport and can find a hook to compete for some other country then you get in. You will most likely perform at the same mid-tier level you did before the Olympics, but you get to hang out in the village and have a fun week or two. When you see some athlete competing for a country that you might have a hard time finding on a map just do a quick check to see which US or European university that athlete attends and competes at -- performance that is good enough to make a university squad is often sufficient to get past the qualification bar at the Olympics.

It's the other way around. Rich countries have more money to fund people to train, so they have more people training and thus perform better.

It's kind of funny that US Olympic success is largely funded by people sitting on couches.

there is also the factor of whether a sport is at the olympics. I believe wrestling is a big sport in west africa. and polo-ish games are pretty big in central asia. these don't appear at the olympics because the ioc is mostly controlled by westerners.

Wrestling's removal as a 'core' Olympic sport was pushed by the Chinese, who wanted to get wushu in.

And such meta-sport competition could be addressed easily and effectively by bringing back pankration under the aegis of IMMAF. Any martial art not contested separately as a pure discipline could enter competitors in the mixed discipline tournament.

Wrestling, boxing, taekwondo, and judo are all martial arts officially contested during the 2016 international games. Additionally, Budo (Japanese) was exhibited in 1964, Glima (Viking) in 1912, and Savate (French) in 1924.

Demonstration sports were suspended after 1992, so Wushu (Chinese) was not exhibited at the Beijing games. Instead, a Wushu tournament ran concurrently with the international games, in Beijing, with permission from the international committee. Looked like a duck; quacked like a duck.

Sports with a compliant international governing body now get to be in a differently-branded international games every 4 years rather than a one-time demonstration sport just when it is popular in the current host country. Sports can be "promoted" from the "next year" games to the main event. Ju-jutsu, Sumo, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, and Karate will be contested in 2017. I am not familiar with any reason why the International Wushu body chooses not to organize events at the other games.

But wrestling is not removed. Wrestling is in for 2020, as is Karate--receiving one of the aforementioned promotions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com