Olympics - Celebration time, but also retrospect...

India never had it so good @ the Olympics - 3 medals at the Beijing Olympics is like, wow.. herez the list of India's moments at the Olympics:

• Indian Hockey team: Gold medal from 1928 olypics to 1956 olympics - GOSH!!
• Norman Pitchard: First asian to win a medal at the olympics, the only indian to win 2 medals in a single olympiad - 2 silvers in 200 m & 200 m hurdles!
• Khashaba Daadasaheb Jadha: Bronze in bantomweight freestyle wrestling in 1952
• Leander Paes: Bronze in mens singles in 1996
• Karnam Malleswari: Bronze in womens 69 Kg weightlifting in 2000
• Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore: Silver in mens double trap event in shooting in 2004

Surely, it's a time to celebrate - we've never won so many medals at a Olympics - But at the same time, its time to ask the question: Given our population, why do we win so few medals, fewer medals than some non-descript nations in the world?? A few thoughts:

• Poor Sports Infrastructure/Sports Management/Political System/No sponsorship blah blah.. we've read about it so many times.. I'm not going to elaborate here
• It's difficult to have sports as an profession in India, because you make money only if you are amongst the very top - otherwise, you don't make any money (with the exception of cricket, which has a lot of sponsorship backing). People prefer to play safe & concentrate on academics - which guarantees monetary benefits. Also, it's a 'prestige issue' in the society - A sportsman is not perceived to 'do well in life'
• Our race does not score high on physical constitution. We dont have the strength (unlike the whites), we dont have stamina (unlike the blacks) we dont have agility(unlike the chinks/orientals). We do better in mental sports (like chess) or team sports which are less demanding physically (like cricket)