Every few years we’ve asked why India’s performance at international sporting events is so poor (1, 2 for example).

Since independence in 1947, India has won 12 Olympic medals in 14 Summer Games - three fewer than Belarus won in 2004 alone. [Link]

Diagnosing India’s athletic failings seems to be India’s favorite sport:

Many theories have been proposed to account for India’s failure. Some experts say India has not much in the way of sports culture and few heroes; others blame a “corrupt sporting bureaucracy”. Things have got so bad that in the past, Indian sports ministers have suggested a moratorium on international competition to train athletes who will not be a national embarrassment. [Link]

Recently, two economists argued that a lack of social mobility is the key culprit:

Anirudh Krishna and Eric Haglund… said that the problem for India is … the number of people who can “effectively participate in sports”.

“Ill health and poor nutrition can hamper early childhood development. In addition, lack of information and lack of access can effectively exclude larges swaths of a country’s population. The resulting small percentage of effective participants helps explain more fully why despite such a large population and a large potential talent pool, a country ends up winning very few Olympic medals,” …

Controversially, the paper contends that social mobility is the key to countries’ success at the Olympics. Populations that are better informed and better connected to opportunities, in societies where information and access are widespread “tend to win a higher share of Olympic medals”, they said. [Link]

While they accept that low GDP has something to do with India’s performance, they point out that India underperforms even amongst its peers, arguing that Cuba, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Uzbekistan have each done far better than India.

Over at Marginal Revolution, Libertarian economist Tyler Cowen places the blame on … a lack of government subsidy. If Tyler’s right, then we should see some changes in the short term, now that Mittal is putting his money behind athletes training for the 2012 Olympics.

The goal is to “put India on the medals grid” in the 2012 London Games by identifying India’s best young athletes and giving them the money to travel the world in search of the best competition and coaches. [Link]

Mittal’s investments may be paying off already. The trust paid for surgery and rehabilitation for potential boxing medalist Akhil Kumar after he hurt his hand:

After suffering a serious injury to his right hand, “my dreams were over,” says the 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medalist. In the past, perhaps they would have been.

But the trust flew him to a specialist in South Africa and paid for two surgeries, as well as the rehabilitation that has followed. “The Mittal Champions Trust gave me new life,” he says. “What Mittal does is beyond expectation…” [Link]

Lastly, the Indian government is talking about establishing a 150-acre national Olympic training center, which would increase the infrastructure for training.

Clearly things will be somewhat better in 2012, as athletes who are already in the pipeline get the assistance they need to compete at an international level. Still, that wont be close the gap right away, and the real test for India will come in the medium term.

p.s. for a counterpoint, see Amit Varma’s argument that China spends too much on sports rather than India spending too little.