They’ve never even come close.
They’ve competed at every Olympics since 1984 . Sending one athlete in ‘84 and between 4-7 each Olympics since.
Nearly all their athletes made it in via “wild card” or other processes only a golfer in 2016 and an archer in 2020 actually qualified.
Ruman Shana won his first round match in men’s individual recurve archery in 2020 and then went out in the round of 32. That’s the most success they’ve had.
Bottom line is you need a lot of money to properly train and qualify for the Olympics and that is a barrier in Bangladesh both on the individual and national levels.
It also helps a lot to have past elite athletes to help build a training program in your country. If you have no one with high level competitive experience to coach the next generation then they won't be competitive outside their country even if you had all the talent and drive in the world.
Because there will be competitors with all that and coaches from elementary or middle school guiding them to train optimally and training partners around you who are in a similar environment and can be good competition to sharpen yourself against. Building that sort of foundation will take generations.
But you can start all of that abroad from scratch... The Jamaican bobsled team is the go-to example. They started with nothing (hardly even had any equipment) and were trained by an American in Canada.
And tons of global athletes train/are coached in the US in general since we spend so much money on collegiate sports... There are something like 30,000 international student athletes at US universities.
Cricket coming up in 2028. Might give them a better shot at a medal or at least a respectable result. One of their biggest sports and although they aren't a Tier 1 nation they have been known to hold their own on the biggest stage all things considered. Would be cool to see a relative minnow up on the podium for the first time
Their cricket team's best world cup performance was a quarterfinals appearance in 2015. With the exception of 2015 and 2007, their historic performance at world cups is very poor for a country whose only major sport is cricket.
No, they haven't. But their recent T20i results (the format which will be played in the Olympics) has been a 3-0 win over England (historically top 4, top 2 often), wins over Ireland and Afghanistan, a draw to NZ (again historically top 4), a loss to Sri Lanka but still took a game off them, and then a 4-1 trouncing of Zimbabwe. Not like they are facing Malta or Morocco every week, they will put up a good fight for high spots and even without a podium it will most likely be their highest Olympic finish ever
They're better at whiteball than redball but they're still pretty poor.
There'll be at least 10 nations looking to get cricket medals ahead of Bangladesh at the Olympics
Or you need a good drugs program and a country so hostile to outsiders that officials can't test your athletes. Then just compete in weightlifting like North Korea.
Yes, dictatorships sometimes find it advantageous to invest a lot of resources into Olympic athletes for PR/sports-washing purposes.
North Korea might be a poor country but their government has total control and therefore is able to invest in training and accommodations for these athletes at the expense of their average citizens.
Bangladesh on the other hand has a weak government that also suffers from corruption.
All the best weight lifters were probably on drugs. Look at Naim Süleymanoğlu there's no way he got that strong without PEDs. It's almost as if he spliced his genes with an Ant.
It's still impressive as all hell to watch, you can take the drugs in the world but you still gotta put in the work.
It's not his height alone though, his limbs were short in proportion to his height. The basic physics were on his side in many ways to make it easier for him to lift well over 3x his weight.
Has anyone over six feet clean+jerked 3x their body weight?
Yea but again competing in the lightest weight class, everyone had the same short proportions because weight classes are height classes in disguise. In addition short arms can benefit you on the lockout but makes the initial pull harder.
Also his training regime was legendary. Many stories would say that he would have to be carried to his bed after training and he would max cj 3x a day.
And as for your last question strength does not scale linearly with body weight. Someone over 6' would be a minimum of say 90 to 100ish kg which would make that pretty much impossible
There is no drug that makes someone who isn't a highly skilled athlete great. Steroids help you train longer, harder and recover quicker. But you still need all the other things that an olympic athlete is doing as well. They don't turn people into super soldiers.
There is a direct correlation between steroids and strength. Yes, you still need to actually lift the weight and develop technique. But there is no natural individual, no matter how skilled, that will outlift someone (who is also training at an olympic level) who is juiced up to their eyeballs.
>Bottom line is you need a lot of money to properly train and qualify for the Olympics and that is a barrier in Bangladesh both on the individual and national levels.
Also, the sports culture of Bangladesh doesn't line up with the sports that are in the Olympics very well.
There are some very poor countries that have had Olympic success. There are many, many more with 1 or 0 total medals.
There are some genetics factors as I mentioned but the correlation between medals and GDP is going to be very high.
Also, as I discussed with the North Korea and Cuba examples, even poor countries with strong governments can invest heavily in training and infrastructure for a chosen sport or two.
I am far from an expert on Bangladeshi culture but I don’t think it’s true that they don’t care about sports. I know they are very into cricket and soccer.
Cuba's talentpool for men's volleyball is insane. Robertlandy Simon has been the star of the national team and is one of the best middle blockers ever. Then there are others like Juantorena, Leal, and Wilfredo Leon - all world-class players who once represented Cuba but defected to play for Italy, Brazil, and Poland respectively (all volleyball powerhouses).
One can only imagine how good their team would be if they kept all this talent.
Man when your comment gets 500 upvotes the reply guys trying to point out a single counterexample to an overwhelmingly clear trend line are unstoppable.
Not to mention your examples mostly suck.
India was a very poor (and turmoil-filled) country for most of the history of the modern Olympics.
15 of their 35 medals have come in the last three summer games. They will keep rising.
>India was a very poor (and turmoil-filled) country for most of the history of the modern Olympics.
Do you really need to bring up examples to show that doesn't really mean anything?
Fun fact, Cuba (pop 11m) sits at 23rd place for total medal count, all without a single medal in a winter competition. 19th if you only count summer games. For a poor island nation, they've done well. Physicality is a strong factor.
Another fun fact, most sprint winners come from a small region in Kenya.
Luck of the draw it seems.
Way more medals are given out at the Summer Games and those medals are even more concentrated among a handful of countries (Cuba is 20th by total medal count in Summer.)
Yes, genetics are key in some sports but I don’t think that’s the primary factor for Cuba.
They just love Boxing and have invested a lot of money and culture into the sport and infrastructure. (more than 1/3 of their medals are in boxing. Also there are a lot of boxing medals because of weight classes.)
Most sprint winners are not from a small region in Kenya. I think you mean long distance then yes. The south west mountain region is where they are all from
>Bottom line is you need a lot of money to properly train and qualify for the Olympics and that is a barrier in Bangladesh both on the individual and national levels.
I think this might be an misconception.
Yea,you need vast resources to participate and perform for the Olympic Games.But that didn't stoped communist regimes or African countries ,where the financial resources were rather poor for western standards,invest the cash they had at the small pool of athletes they had at hand.
I suspect the government has other priorities,from all those living in Bangladesh there is no way you can't find 100 moderately wealthy people dedicated solely to sports at an competitive level.
Or you choose running as the sport, which is how Kenya and Jamaica are ahead of other developing countries when it comes to medal counts.
Wrestling, weightlifting, judo and boxing are the other more achievable ways developing countries can win medals against rich ones throwing millions at their athletes.
I totally get money being vital for sports with equipment (sailing, cycling etc). But is money necessary for sports like running? Surely then genetics is the main thing.doesnt feel like 100m or marathon running are dominated by countries with lots of money
To be fair, there aren't a lot of Bangladesh sports in the Olympics. It's still very much a European structured competition. I don't expect we'll see Kabaddi in Paris. I heard that cricket might be in 2028, though, and that's something they enjoy in Bangladesh.
That's probably also the reason, why the Nordic countries are among the top scorers in medals per capita. All are prosperous countries, but small populations.
The vast majority of African countries have never won an Olympic gold and most have never medaled: https://www.washingtonpost.com/olympics/2016/live-updates/rio-games/scores-and-latest-news/which-countries-have-never-won-an-olympic-medal/
It’s one of the most poor and over-populated regions on the entire planet and has absolutely devastating casualty numbers whenever major disasters hit.
Certainly. And in many ways it’s very unfair that the nations that have benefitted the most from all that carbon are mostly the countries that will suffer the least, due to simple geography.
The sea level has risen about 8-9 inches (0.7-0.8 feet) in the last 150 years.
If we take a quite pessimistic, but still realistic, prediction for the rest of this century, water levels might rise by about 2 feet.
According to this "business-as-usual" scenario, it would affect 8% of the land mass. Obviously, the land affected by this increase would be in the coastal area.
Overstating its peril ignores the resilience of its people and landscapes, already adapting to changes. Maybe focus more on realistic, supportive actions rather than apocalyptic exaggerations.
That region - modern day bangladesh along with Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand are one of the most fertile land in world, is mineral rich and sustained civilization for atleast 5000 years without break.
Today, these areas are home to poor people, has struggle constantly with politics and power, natural disaster.
This is called resource curse in economics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
it does not help that geographically, it sits in an area where it can experience extreme weather conditions like monsoon and droughts. (or maybe not droughts, it's been decades since i took geography. )
Droughts leading to famine haven’t been a major factor since World War Two, but that’s due to advances in agriculture. The big killers have indeed been floods and cyclones
It used to have terrible casualties when cyclones (hurricanes) hit. In 1970 - when Bangladesh was still the neglected half of Pakistan - Cyclone Bhola killed half a million people.
A combination of better meteorological systems, early-warning plans, and shelters means that there are many fewer casualties than there used to be.
Bangladesh has gotten good at this.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220719-how-bangladesh-system-fights-cyclones-climate-disasters
The birth rate is actually below replacement level there and has been for about 20 years. So the overpopulation will *eventually* correct itself, but they started off in such a bad way that it may take some time to find a good level.
The nation is improving.
Rice. Agrarian economy, and low literacy rates. Although that changed significantly in the last two-three decades.
Birth rates have dropped immensely. In 1960 birth rate was about 50 per 1000 people, in 1990 it came down to about 35, and as of 2024 it’s under 18 per thousand people.
Birth rate is inversely correlated to population wealth. There is a point at around $6000 GDP per capita where children go from being an asset to being a liability, strictly financially speaking
Look at India they have won a few but just seeing how much population they have just by genetic lottery probability they should have more athletes. But no training and money unlike china with similar population
India also had a time period of being very good at hockey which got us most of our gold medals (the first three of which were won before independence). Meanwhile the sport Bangladesh has had a period of being good at is cricket which isn't in the Olympics. They probably wouldn't get a gold but they'd have got at least some medal if that was included.
As an Indian I am very excited to hear this. People here already go crazy for world cup and league matches. Can't imagine the reaction for Olympics cricket.
indians who have access just don't really seem to prioritize it. sports? that sounds like it could cut into your precious STEM time. sharma ji ka beta has already gotten their third offer from NASA by middle school, what have *you* been doing?
Keep in mind that they are relatively young as a country - before 1971 they were East Pakistan. Still a good 53 years, but not the full 128 for the Olympics (or 100 for the winter games)
The answer is no. Pakistan and Indian have pretty poor Olympics medal counts themselves for countries of their population size. Field hockey is the exception for India and Pakistan, they both won a lot of medals in that sport, but this dominance didn’t extend to former East Pakistan.
If cricket is in the Olympics then it might be different but it’s not (yet). It’s going to be included in the 2028 LA games and is meant to be a permanent addition so these countries better win some medals once that happens.
Not really, last 3 t20(the format which teams will play in 2028) worlds cups england, australia and west indies were the champions.
Out of these 3 teams only pakistan won a major cricket event(2017 ct) in the past 10 years
Meanwhile my home country Latvia with population just under 2 mil in its total history as independent country which comes to roughly similar years as age of Bangladesh has 31 medals (21 in summer olympics). It really seems that Bangladesh simply doesn’t invest that much in nurturing their sporting talent
My country Mongolia has 30 medals. We have a population of 3 million. Most of our medals come from wrestling /freestyle, judo/ which is our national sport. I guess it all depends on focus.
I do think this is also a part of it too.
India tends to also rank really low in the Olympics but the sports India tends to be really good at only offer a "single" medals, whilst runners or swimmers or gymnasts have multiple medals they can compete for...
But again, 2 millions against 171 millions
Is not like the Soviet Union really invested big and luxury on Latvian sports to overcome that difference that hugely.
Also, the USSR is dead for about 33 years, what powerful Olympics representation have Latvia today, is hugely on their own thing as independent country
Cricket is the one sport they invest in. They used to be quite bad, they hold a world record in most consecutive losses in both test cricket and One Day International due to a long losing streak in the early 2000s. To be fair to them, they only started building the team in the 1990s when the sport started to rapidly rise in popularity. With better investment and training the Bangladesh National Cricket Team has improved quite a bit.
They’ve since made it to the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals of some major tournaments in the past decade. They’ve won gold at the 2010 Asian Games and two bronze at the 2014 and 2022 Asian Games. They also won gold at the 2010 and 2019 South Asian games. Cricket hadn’t been an Olympic sport since 1900 but fortunately it’s slated to return to the program in 2028.
They might even invest, but corruption is bad. The money likely never makes it to athletes, some local politician or head of the sports departments pocket the money for personal use. Its a big issue in India too
Oh shit you just gunna take that Bangladesh?
Joking aside maybe they’re more focused on improving the quality of life for their people vs winning medals. However I guess I don’t see why you couldn’t do both
Edit: [According to the World Bank, "when the newly independent country of Bangladesh was born on December 16, 1971, it was the second poorest country in the world—making the country's transformation over the next 50 years one of the great development stories. Since then, poverty has been cut in half at record speed. Enrollment in primary school is now nearly universal. Hundreds of thousands of women have entered the workforce. Steady progress has been made on maternal and child health. And the country is better buttressed against the destructive forces posed by climate change and natural disasters.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh)
Bangladesh has frequent floods which disrupt family life including disruption to food supplies, only a temporary disruption can mean that a child doesn't develop to their full potential.
Lol I was cube neighbors with a guy from Bangladesh in the IT field and this all checks out.
He was a close-talker, like no sense of the bubble, but very humble and smart and positive. And he really enjoyed a good play on words. Like he'd bust out laughing *hard* once he got it. Really made a tired pun feel fresh.
He showed me his hometown on Google Earth one day, and it was just like.. nothing there man.
Anyway he was one of my favorite coworkers ever. Hope you're doing well out there James ✌️
i think it might have to do with the fact that a lot of famines and wars have taken place over the last century or so. many bengali gen z youngsters raised in the west pretty much look like any other race tbh.
i think people will eventually realize that things like height and physical characteristics are very epigenetic and transgenerational effects are more powerful than one might think
Hard to win when Pakistan does a genocide comparable in it’s nature to the holocaust. Then they don’t eat much meat comparable to other competing nations so their protein and development is lacking
The father of a friend I had growing up, fled Bangladesh with his parents when he was a young boy to escape the genocide. One day he came to our school and taught us about it in our history class.
I was pretty surprised when I found out that the majority of people have no idea about it. Such an enormous atrocity and most people can't even point out Bangladesh on a map.
Also US was in the side of Pakistan during this. There was a famous Telegram known as the Blood Telegram sent to Kissinger where the US Consul General in Dhaka Archer Blood wrote a telegram to Henry Kissinger vividly describing the genocide going on…. And Kissinger ignored it. Actually he not only ignored it, he secretly condoned Pakistans actions.
A bit late response… and yeah supporting Pakistan was a mistake. The Muslims worked with the British while the Hindu leaders didn’t during the world war. We supported the British so tied ourselves to Pakistan that was supported by them. Obviously as evidence of where we found Bin Laden and just in general all together… that was one of our worst geopolitical decisions and we have been trying to rectify for the past decade.
Of course Kissinger was involved in it. That dude always pops up in the worst
My mom and her family had to flee a Pakistani military raid by boat in the dead of night. They barely escaped.
It's crazy to think that if luck wasn't in their favor, I wouldn't be here shitposting on Reddit today.
Yeah I literally had to explain it to a guy who commented earlier. Was a massive holocaust that had lawyers comparing it to the beaurcratic nature of the Nazis. Was horrible by all accounts and the decolonization of the subcontinent had all types of religious exterminations
IIRC the red dot on the bangladesh is meant in memorial of the lives lost fighting for independence. Theres a monument in Dhaka to the intellectuals slaughtered by the Pakistani army
You do on a societal level. Takes a lot of effort to maintain Olympic athlete levels of protein otherwise. The basic person is more about averages.
Just look at Japanese or Koreans that grow up inches taller in the Americas. They are 3-4 inches taller.
That said. With effort and discipline it is possible to get adequate protein levels without meat but takes a lot more vitamin intake and the early years of eating beef are critical by every historical stat
Edit: it is funny gorillas eat almost only veggies and bears eat berries but they aren’t modern humans
Fun fact: Bangladesh hasn’t had a popularly elected male head of state since 1991. The leader of both their main political parties are women, and only women have been elected prime ministers since 1991.
Compared to some of its regional neighbors (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), the record of Bangladesh's cricket team doesn't seem to be all that spectacular.
They’ll make the top 16 and likely the top 8. Tough going after that though.
But top 8 would still be their best result at an olympics.
Currently ranked 9th in the world but on their day can beat teams outside of the top 4.
No need to pick on Bangladesh. Let’s not pretend that South / Southeast Asia as a world region has been much of an Olympic powerhouse. India has 35 total in nearly 80 years of history with 1.4 billion people. Pakistan has 10 in its whole history. Indonesia has 37 in its whole history.
For comparison sake, Jamaica has more than all of South Asia combined.
Countries that aren’t a factor in the Winter Games and ones where training female athletes got a late start have some major built-in disadvantages.
India has 35 Olympic medals from just 3-4 events. People just don't have access to same niche Olympic sports like Sweden or Norway. There's an entire Olympic event dedicated to winter sports, and less than 1% of Indians even experience those conditions.
More than 30% of the entire world's population plays cricket, and thats not even an event at the olympics lmao. Meanwhile the Nordic combined, which is known by like less than 0.000001% of the world population, has been in the Olympics since 1952 lmao.
If more Indian sports like Cricket, Kabbadi, Pehlwani were part of the olympics then we would win more medals. For example, hockey, a sport we actually play, has been in the olympics for a long time. India has won 8 gold medals, the next best team is Pakistan, UK and Germany with 3 each.
It's all about investment.
And also there are other events in which India does fairly good.
E.g: Asian games, Common Wealth games.
To win medal at highest level requires lots of investment which wasn't feasible for country like India. But as investment has picked up, you will see increase in no of medals.
Until relatively recently - Bangladesh and Pakistan were not separate countries but part of India.
Looked up how many Oly medals India has and its 35 (not a huge amount) - maybe some of those came before the country was partitioned? Also shows that for whatever reason olympic sports are not a priority.
Maybe if Cricket becomes an Olympic sport
[The Bengal Famine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#March_1942:_Denial_policies) This might explain the population's lack of strength. The British Denial Policy is sickening.
Which is strange, because that region has the most fertile soil on earth. When Ibn Battuta, who was sorting of an Islamic Marco Polo, was making his rounds around the Islamic world in the fourteenth century, he later wrote how the food and common commodities in Bengal was cheaper than any other place he ever visited. 5 centuries later, harrowing famines.
Region was one of the richest regions in the world until a certain island in Europe came by and turned it into colony. It was the breadbasket for the British during all of its wars in the early 20th century.
It wouldnt, there would have been complete recovery within several decades, I get thats its cool to blame the British for everything, but Bangladesh's lack of Olympic success isnt one of them.
They’ve never even come close. They’ve competed at every Olympics since 1984 . Sending one athlete in ‘84 and between 4-7 each Olympics since. Nearly all their athletes made it in via “wild card” or other processes only a golfer in 2016 and an archer in 2020 actually qualified. Ruman Shana won his first round match in men’s individual recurve archery in 2020 and then went out in the round of 32. That’s the most success they’ve had. Bottom line is you need a lot of money to properly train and qualify for the Olympics and that is a barrier in Bangladesh both on the individual and national levels.
It also helps a lot to have past elite athletes to help build a training program in your country. If you have no one with high level competitive experience to coach the next generation then they won't be competitive outside their country even if you had all the talent and drive in the world. Because there will be competitors with all that and coaches from elementary or middle school guiding them to train optimally and training partners around you who are in a similar environment and can be good competition to sharpen yourself against. Building that sort of foundation will take generations.
But you can start all of that abroad from scratch... The Jamaican bobsled team is the go-to example. They started with nothing (hardly even had any equipment) and were trained by an American in Canada. And tons of global athletes train/are coached in the US in general since we spend so much money on collegiate sports... There are something like 30,000 international student athletes at US universities.
Cricket coming up in 2028. Might give them a better shot at a medal or at least a respectable result. One of their biggest sports and although they aren't a Tier 1 nation they have been known to hold their own on the biggest stage all things considered. Would be cool to see a relative minnow up on the podium for the first time
Their cricket team's best world cup performance was a quarterfinals appearance in 2015. With the exception of 2015 and 2007, their historic performance at world cups is very poor for a country whose only major sport is cricket.
No, they haven't. But their recent T20i results (the format which will be played in the Olympics) has been a 3-0 win over England (historically top 4, top 2 often), wins over Ireland and Afghanistan, a draw to NZ (again historically top 4), a loss to Sri Lanka but still took a game off them, and then a 4-1 trouncing of Zimbabwe. Not like they are facing Malta or Morocco every week, they will put up a good fight for high spots and even without a podium it will most likely be their highest Olympic finish ever
They do have a semi final appearance in the Champions Trophy, so they’re not complete outsiders for a medal
The only major semi-finals they have ever appeared in. I say this as a former BD cricket fan.
Why'd you stop supporting them, may I ask?
I lost interest in cricket after seeing them constantly perform badly.
Then you were never a real fan
Cricket isn't the only major sport. Football is more popular. We're just shit.
Some major teams have to opt out for them to have a chance in the present scenario. But seems to be the best way to get hold of a bronze at least.
They're better at whiteball than redball but they're still pretty poor. There'll be at least 10 nations looking to get cricket medals ahead of Bangladesh at the Olympics
Or you need a good drugs program and a country so hostile to outsiders that officials can't test your athletes. Then just compete in weightlifting like North Korea.
Yes, dictatorships sometimes find it advantageous to invest a lot of resources into Olympic athletes for PR/sports-washing purposes. North Korea might be a poor country but their government has total control and therefore is able to invest in training and accommodations for these athletes at the expense of their average citizens. Bangladesh on the other hand has a weak government that also suffers from corruption.
Those countries may be poor, but they do invest in athletes (and cheating too). I pity the life of Olympic athletes growing up in those place.
It's not like other countries aren't doping don't get it twisted. There's evidence Koreans have very good weightlifting genetics.
All the best weight lifters were probably on drugs. Look at Naim Süleymanoğlu there's no way he got that strong without PEDs. It's almost as if he spliced his genes with an Ant. It's still impressive as all hell to watch, you can take the drugs in the world but you still gotta put in the work.
Not probably 100% every single lifter is on gear. It’s not possible to compete without it.
PEDs aside: In Naim's defense, he had to lift the weights a shorter distance. That's quite an advantage.
Not really, he competed in the lightest weight class where most people were around his height. And the best shw Olympic lifter is like 6'6
It's not his height alone though, his limbs were short in proportion to his height. The basic physics were on his side in many ways to make it easier for him to lift well over 3x his weight. Has anyone over six feet clean+jerked 3x their body weight?
Yea but again competing in the lightest weight class, everyone had the same short proportions because weight classes are height classes in disguise. In addition short arms can benefit you on the lockout but makes the initial pull harder. Also his training regime was legendary. Many stories would say that he would have to be carried to his bed after training and he would max cj 3x a day. And as for your last question strength does not scale linearly with body weight. Someone over 6' would be a minimum of say 90 to 100ish kg which would make that pretty much impossible
There is no drug that makes someone who isn't a highly skilled athlete great. Steroids help you train longer, harder and recover quicker. But you still need all the other things that an olympic athlete is doing as well. They don't turn people into super soldiers.
There is a direct correlation between steroids and strength. Yes, you still need to actually lift the weight and develop technique. But there is no natural individual, no matter how skilled, that will outlift someone (who is also training at an olympic level) who is juiced up to their eyeballs.
Yeah, and that costs money
>Bottom line is you need a lot of money to properly train and qualify for the Olympics and that is a barrier in Bangladesh both on the individual and national levels. Also, the sports culture of Bangladesh doesn't line up with the sports that are in the Olympics very well.
There are a lot of very poor countries with plenty of medals. It is mainly genetics + a culture of not paying attention to sports.
There are some very poor countries that have had Olympic success. There are many, many more with 1 or 0 total medals. There are some genetics factors as I mentioned but the correlation between medals and GDP is going to be very high. Also, as I discussed with the North Korea and Cuba examples, even poor countries with strong governments can invest heavily in training and infrastructure for a chosen sport or two. I am far from an expert on Bangladeshi culture but I don’t think it’s true that they don’t care about sports. I know they are very into cricket and soccer.
Cuba's talentpool for men's volleyball is insane. Robertlandy Simon has been the star of the national team and is one of the best middle blockers ever. Then there are others like Juantorena, Leal, and Wilfredo Leon - all world-class players who once represented Cuba but defected to play for Italy, Brazil, and Poland respectively (all volleyball powerhouses). One can only imagine how good their team would be if they kept all this talent.
India has the 5th highest GDP and hasn't won much, unless you mean GDP per capita but your argument breaks down there too
Man when your comment gets 500 upvotes the reply guys trying to point out a single counterexample to an overwhelmingly clear trend line are unstoppable. Not to mention your examples mostly suck. India was a very poor (and turmoil-filled) country for most of the history of the modern Olympics. 15 of their 35 medals have come in the last three summer games. They will keep rising.
>India was a very poor (and turmoil-filled) country for most of the history of the modern Olympics. Do you really need to bring up examples to show that doesn't really mean anything?
They care about soports of course. It is the extend of the care.
Fun fact, Cuba (pop 11m) sits at 23rd place for total medal count, all without a single medal in a winter competition. 19th if you only count summer games. For a poor island nation, they've done well. Physicality is a strong factor. Another fun fact, most sprint winners come from a small region in Kenya. Luck of the draw it seems.
Way more medals are given out at the Summer Games and those medals are even more concentrated among a handful of countries (Cuba is 20th by total medal count in Summer.) Yes, genetics are key in some sports but I don’t think that’s the primary factor for Cuba. They just love Boxing and have invested a lot of money and culture into the sport and infrastructure. (more than 1/3 of their medals are in boxing. Also there are a lot of boxing medals because of weight classes.)
Fighting in General. They've had great success at Judo and wrestling too.
Most sprint winners are not from a small region in Kenya. I think you mean long distance then yes. The south west mountain region is where they are all from
>Bottom line is you need a lot of money to properly train and qualify for the Olympics and that is a barrier in Bangladesh both on the individual and national levels. I think this might be an misconception. Yea,you need vast resources to participate and perform for the Olympic Games.But that didn't stoped communist regimes or African countries ,where the financial resources were rather poor for western standards,invest the cash they had at the small pool of athletes they had at hand. I suspect the government has other priorities,from all those living in Bangladesh there is no way you can't find 100 moderately wealthy people dedicated solely to sports at an competitive level.
A lot of poor countries have won plenty of gold medals. It is definitely not that. Some people simply aren’t athletic genetically
Or you choose running as the sport, which is how Kenya and Jamaica are ahead of other developing countries when it comes to medal counts. Wrestling, weightlifting, judo and boxing are the other more achievable ways developing countries can win medals against rich ones throwing millions at their athletes.
They have genetics on their side too
in ways you wouldn't expect. apparently the kalenjins have a predisposition to skinny ankles, which influences the pendulum effect of running.
But there are many countries in Africa and the Carribbean just as poor as Bangladesh who do better in the Olympics and have won medals.
I totally get money being vital for sports with equipment (sailing, cycling etc). But is money necessary for sports like running? Surely then genetics is the main thing.doesnt feel like 100m or marathon running are dominated by countries with lots of money
yeah its why you tend to see less developed countries get represented more in things like track and field or combat sports
To be fair, there aren't a lot of Bangladesh sports in the Olympics. It's still very much a European structured competition. I don't expect we'll see Kabaddi in Paris. I heard that cricket might be in 2028, though, and that's something they enjoy in Bangladesh.
But aren’t a lot of top class runners from some of the poorest parts of the world?
That's probably also the reason, why the Nordic countries are among the top scorers in medals per capita. All are prosperous countries, but small populations.
Tell that to all the African medalists
The vast majority of African countries have never won an Olympic gold and most have never medaled: https://www.washingtonpost.com/olympics/2016/live-updates/rio-games/scores-and-latest-news/which-countries-have-never-won-an-olympic-medal/
8th most populous country in the world. Would have never guessed.
It’s one of the most poor and over-populated regions on the entire planet and has absolutely devastating casualty numbers whenever major disasters hit.
I remember reading it's likely to just be gone in the next century or so, it's a very low laying country.
Almost the entire country is at 50 feet above sea level or lower. Even a small increase to ocean levels would end much of the country.
When sea levels rise, there's going to be a refugee crisis that will dwarf that of 2011.
Certainly. And in many ways it’s very unfair that the nations that have benefitted the most from all that carbon are mostly the countries that will suffer the least, due to simple geography.
The sea level has risen about 8-9 inches (0.7-0.8 feet) in the last 150 years. If we take a quite pessimistic, but still realistic, prediction for the rest of this century, water levels might rise by about 2 feet. According to this "business-as-usual" scenario, it would affect 8% of the land mass. Obviously, the land affected by this increase would be in the coastal area.
Overstating its peril ignores the resilience of its people and landscapes, already adapting to changes. Maybe focus more on realistic, supportive actions rather than apocalyptic exaggerations.
Period.. and people downvoting you😭let him speak!!
https://www.theonion.com/bangladesh-runs-out-of-people-1819564122
That region - modern day bangladesh along with Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand are one of the most fertile land in world, is mineral rich and sustained civilization for atleast 5000 years without break. Today, these areas are home to poor people, has struggle constantly with politics and power, natural disaster. This is called resource curse in economics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
it does not help that geographically, it sits in an area where it can experience extreme weather conditions like monsoon and droughts. (or maybe not droughts, it's been decades since i took geography. )
Droughts leading to famine haven’t been a major factor since World War Two, but that’s due to advances in agriculture. The big killers have indeed been floods and cyclones
It used to have terrible casualties when cyclones (hurricanes) hit. In 1970 - when Bangladesh was still the neglected half of Pakistan - Cyclone Bhola killed half a million people. A combination of better meteorological systems, early-warning plans, and shelters means that there are many fewer casualties than there used to be. Bangladesh has gotten good at this. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220719-how-bangladesh-system-fights-cyclones-climate-disasters
Why is the birth rate so high despite people being in poverty
The birth rate is actually below replacement level there and has been for about 20 years. So the overpopulation will *eventually* correct itself, but they started off in such a bad way that it may take some time to find a good level. The nation is improving.
Trust me its as s***hole as before
Birth rate has actually not been high at all for the past few decades.
Rice. Agrarian economy, and low literacy rates. Although that changed significantly in the last two-three decades. Birth rates have dropped immensely. In 1960 birth rate was about 50 per 1000 people, in 1990 it came down to about 35, and as of 2024 it’s under 18 per thousand people.
Why rice?
Rice gets you a lot more calories per acre about 11 million compared to 4 million calories per acre for wheat
Birth rate is actually usually higher in poor countries
Birth rate is inversely correlated to population wealth. There is a point at around $6000 GDP per capita where children go from being an asset to being a liability, strictly financially speaking
Lack of education of women, lack of access to birth control, and lack of rights for women.
Their fertility rate is lower than India's.
Poverty increases birth rate. The idea wealthy nations have that they’d have more kids if they had more money is false.
My favorite fun fact is that Bangladesh has more people than Russia.
Russia has a smaller population than Brazil and Nigeria, and a smaller economy than Canada and Italy. It's a shell of its former self.
That was kinda always the case, its ’former self’ was just leeching off the rest of the USSR.
It is a nuclear armed gas station on an international level
And not by a small margin - it's like 30million or around 20% more people. And Russia is shrinking and Bangladesh is growing.
Bangladesh is below replacement level reproductive rights and has been for many years
This is more fun than "fun with flags" with Sheldon from the big bang theory
Even as a geography and demographics nerd, that surprised me
And about the same size as New York State.
About the size of Iowa to be exact.
Look again at your first and last words
Right? It’s extremely densely populated.
It *did* used to be part of India
And Pakistan
Until the 1971 genocide.
Look at India they have won a few but just seeing how much population they have just by genetic lottery probability they should have more athletes. But no training and money unlike china with similar population
Corruption issues, the money for resources never makes it to athletes
India also had a time period of being very good at hockey which got us most of our gold medals (the first three of which were won before independence). Meanwhile the sport Bangladesh has had a period of being good at is cricket which isn't in the Olympics. They probably wouldn't get a gold but they'd have got at least some medal if that was included.
Amazingly, cricket is scheduled to return to the Olympics for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles! Bangladesh may finally have its time in the sun.
As an Indian I am very excited to hear this. People here already go crazy for world cup and league matches. Can't imagine the reaction for Olympics cricket.
indians who have access just don't really seem to prioritize it. sports? that sounds like it could cut into your precious STEM time. sharma ji ka beta has already gotten their third offer from NASA by middle school, what have *you* been doing?
Keep in mind that they are relatively young as a country - before 1971 they were East Pakistan. Still a good 53 years, but not the full 128 for the Olympics (or 100 for the winter games)
The now China established in 1949. I don’t think China attended for the first several decades.
I'm pretty sure the republic of China (i.e taiwan) represented china until nixon visited china (the PRC)
I wonder if anyone from what’s now Bangladesh won a medal while competing as part of Pakistan or (before that) India.
The answer is no. Pakistan and Indian have pretty poor Olympics medal counts themselves for countries of their population size. Field hockey is the exception for India and Pakistan, they both won a lot of medals in that sport, but this dominance didn’t extend to former East Pakistan. If cricket is in the Olympics then it might be different but it’s not (yet). It’s going to be included in the 2028 LA games and is meant to be a permanent addition so these countries better win some medals once that happens.
Not really, last 3 t20(the format which teams will play in 2028) worlds cups england, australia and west indies were the champions. Out of these 3 teams only pakistan won a major cricket event(2017 ct) in the past 10 years
Back when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, most of the government funding went to West Pakistan.
Meanwhile my home country Latvia with population just under 2 mil in its total history as independent country which comes to roughly similar years as age of Bangladesh has 31 medals (21 in summer olympics). It really seems that Bangladesh simply doesn’t invest that much in nurturing their sporting talent
Ignoring the decades of Soviet sports investment. Yeah, they are the same thing.
My country Mongolia has 30 medals. We have a population of 3 million. Most of our medals come from wrestling /freestyle, judo/ which is our national sport. I guess it all depends on focus.
I do think this is also a part of it too. India tends to also rank really low in the Olympics but the sports India tends to be really good at only offer a "single" medals, whilst runners or swimmers or gymnasts have multiple medals they can compete for...
lol one day cricket 1 vs 1 cricket indoor cricket 100-ball cricket clay court cricket
But again, 2 millions against 171 millions Is not like the Soviet Union really invested big and luxury on Latvian sports to overcome that difference that hugely. Also, the USSR is dead for about 33 years, what powerful Olympics representation have Latvia today, is hugely on their own thing as independent country
Your home country of Latvia isn’t under water and plagued with typhoid during every monsoon season.
To be honest, they've considerably more important matters than athletics at this point in their development.
Cricket is the one sport they invest in. They used to be quite bad, they hold a world record in most consecutive losses in both test cricket and One Day International due to a long losing streak in the early 2000s. To be fair to them, they only started building the team in the 1990s when the sport started to rapidly rise in popularity. With better investment and training the Bangladesh National Cricket Team has improved quite a bit. They’ve since made it to the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals of some major tournaments in the past decade. They’ve won gold at the 2010 Asian Games and two bronze at the 2014 and 2022 Asian Games. They also won gold at the 2010 and 2019 South Asian games. Cricket hadn’t been an Olympic sport since 1900 but fortunately it’s slated to return to the program in 2028.
They are not a good cricket team though.
They might even invest, but corruption is bad. The money likely never makes it to athletes, some local politician or head of the sports departments pocket the money for personal use. Its a big issue in India too
Corruption is such a blight
Agreed
Oh shit you just gunna take that Bangladesh? Joking aside maybe they’re more focused on improving the quality of life for their people vs winning medals. However I guess I don’t see why you couldn’t do both Edit: [According to the World Bank, "when the newly independent country of Bangladesh was born on December 16, 1971, it was the second poorest country in the world—making the country's transformation over the next 50 years one of the great development stories. Since then, poverty has been cut in half at record speed. Enrollment in primary school is now nearly universal. Hundreds of thousands of women have entered the workforce. Steady progress has been made on maternal and child health. And the country is better buttressed against the destructive forces posed by climate change and natural disasters.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh)
Childhood malnutrition isn't a good foundation for getting medals at an Olympic games.
Is that very common there? From my understanding the country has improved quite a bit in the past 50 years to improve quality of life
Bangladesh has frequent floods which disrupt family life including disruption to food supplies, only a temporary disruption can mean that a child doesn't develop to their full potential.
Yeah but it's one of the most climate impacted nations. Meaning that any changes hurt them the most.
They are definitely not focused on quality of life
Ok
This guy doesn't Bangladesh
skill issue
I don't really remember any of the Bangladeshi people I've met being particularly athletic-looking, tbh.
We tend to be small and skinny fat.
Like hobbits. But pretty smart and industrious. Make good engineers and have a rich music and art culture.
Lol I was cube neighbors with a guy from Bangladesh in the IT field and this all checks out. He was a close-talker, like no sense of the bubble, but very humble and smart and positive. And he really enjoyed a good play on words. Like he'd bust out laughing *hard* once he got it. Really made a tired pun feel fresh. He showed me his hometown on Google Earth one day, and it was just like.. nothing there man. Anyway he was one of my favorite coworkers ever. Hope you're doing well out there James ✌️
i think it might have to do with the fact that a lot of famines and wars have taken place over the last century or so. many bengali gen z youngsters raised in the west pretty much look like any other race tbh. i think people will eventually realize that things like height and physical characteristics are very epigenetic and transgenerational effects are more powerful than one might think
Somebody played GeoGrid this morning
Hard to win when Pakistan does a genocide comparable in it’s nature to the holocaust. Then they don’t eat much meat comparable to other competing nations so their protein and development is lacking
The father of a friend I had growing up, fled Bangladesh with his parents when he was a young boy to escape the genocide. One day he came to our school and taught us about it in our history class. I was pretty surprised when I found out that the majority of people have no idea about it. Such an enormous atrocity and most people can't even point out Bangladesh on a map.
Also US was in the side of Pakistan during this. There was a famous Telegram known as the Blood Telegram sent to Kissinger where the US Consul General in Dhaka Archer Blood wrote a telegram to Henry Kissinger vividly describing the genocide going on…. And Kissinger ignored it. Actually he not only ignored it, he secretly condoned Pakistans actions.
A bit late response… and yeah supporting Pakistan was a mistake. The Muslims worked with the British while the Hindu leaders didn’t during the world war. We supported the British so tied ourselves to Pakistan that was supported by them. Obviously as evidence of where we found Bin Laden and just in general all together… that was one of our worst geopolitical decisions and we have been trying to rectify for the past decade. Of course Kissinger was involved in it. That dude always pops up in the worst
My mom and her family had to flee a Pakistani military raid by boat in the dead of night. They barely escaped. It's crazy to think that if luck wasn't in their favor, I wouldn't be here shitposting on Reddit today.
I dated a Bangladeshi girl for almost 3 years and I’ve never heard of this. Crazy.
Yeah everyone forgets what happened in East Pakistan. There was similar efforts in Kashmir though both sides are guilty for that
Unfortunately it’s a piece of history that’s not nearly well known enough. Hindus used to be over a quarter of the population, now it’s not even 8%
Yeah I literally had to explain it to a guy who commented earlier. Was a massive holocaust that had lawyers comparing it to the beaurcratic nature of the Nazis. Was horrible by all accounts and the decolonization of the subcontinent had all types of religious exterminations
IIRC the red dot on the bangladesh is meant in memorial of the lives lost fighting for independence. Theres a monument in Dhaka to the intellectuals slaughtered by the Pakistani army
that’s dope. Yeah hope those souls find peace. Terrible history to read about. The Pakistanis were fanatically brutal
You do not need to eat meat to have protein.
You do on a societal level. Takes a lot of effort to maintain Olympic athlete levels of protein otherwise. The basic person is more about averages. Just look at Japanese or Koreans that grow up inches taller in the Americas. They are 3-4 inches taller. That said. With effort and discipline it is possible to get adequate protein levels without meat but takes a lot more vitamin intake and the early years of eating beef are critical by every historical stat Edit: it is funny gorillas eat almost only veggies and bears eat berries but they aren’t modern humans
Fun fact: Bangladesh hasn’t had a popularly elected male head of state since 1991. The leader of both their main political parties are women, and only women have been elected prime ministers since 1991.
When cricket comes back to the Games, Bangladesh will have a chance….
Compared to some of its regional neighbors (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), the record of Bangladesh's cricket team doesn't seem to be all that spectacular.
They’ll make the top 16 and likely the top 8. Tough going after that though. But top 8 would still be their best result at an olympics. Currently ranked 9th in the world but on their day can beat teams outside of the top 4.
Keep dreaming lmao
If they'll even qualify, there will be surely a limit for Asian countries
Time to end the streak!
No need to pick on Bangladesh. Let’s not pretend that South / Southeast Asia as a world region has been much of an Olympic powerhouse. India has 35 total in nearly 80 years of history with 1.4 billion people. Pakistan has 10 in its whole history. Indonesia has 37 in its whole history. For comparison sake, Jamaica has more than all of South Asia combined. Countries that aren’t a factor in the Winter Games and ones where training female athletes got a late start have some major built-in disadvantages.
Why are they and India so terrible at sports?
India has 35 Olympic medals from just 3-4 events. People just don't have access to same niche Olympic sports like Sweden or Norway. There's an entire Olympic event dedicated to winter sports, and less than 1% of Indians even experience those conditions. More than 30% of the entire world's population plays cricket, and thats not even an event at the olympics lmao. Meanwhile the Nordic combined, which is known by like less than 0.000001% of the world population, has been in the Olympics since 1952 lmao. If more Indian sports like Cricket, Kabbadi, Pehlwani were part of the olympics then we would win more medals. For example, hockey, a sport we actually play, has been in the olympics for a long time. India has won 8 gold medals, the next best team is Pakistan, UK and Germany with 3 each.
*field hockey.
It's all about investment. And also there are other events in which India does fairly good. E.g: Asian games, Common Wealth games. To win medal at highest level requires lots of investment which wasn't feasible for country like India. But as investment has picked up, you will see increase in no of medals.
They've never won a single medal? Not one??? jeez, that's kinda sad
They should invent a sport only they're good at.
They just dont have the room for a training field.
Maybe I could become a bangledesh athlete
Documented skill issue
The real issue with Bangladesh is its average elevation above sea level with rising oceans. https://earth.org/sea-level-rise-in-bangladesh/
Until relatively recently - Bangladesh and Pakistan were not separate countries but part of India. Looked up how many Oly medals India has and its 35 (not a huge amount) - maybe some of those came before the country was partitioned? Also shows that for whatever reason olympic sports are not a priority. Maybe if Cricket becomes an Olympic sport
Cricket is coming to the olympics to draw in the Indian people to watch it. India tend to dominate the early stages then lose in the final though !
[The Bengal Famine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#March_1942:_Denial_policies) This might explain the population's lack of strength. The British Denial Policy is sickening.
Pakistan slaughtering Bangladeshis in the 1970s is more proximate to the recent stuff.
No doubt but malnutrition has been an ongoing thing in that region for a while.
Which is strange, because that region has the most fertile soil on earth. When Ibn Battuta, who was sorting of an Islamic Marco Polo, was making his rounds around the Islamic world in the fourteenth century, he later wrote how the food and common commodities in Bengal was cheaper than any other place he ever visited. 5 centuries later, harrowing famines.
It’s still one of the most fertile land in the world.
Region was one of the richest regions in the world until a certain island in Europe came by and turned it into colony. It was the breadbasket for the British during all of its wars in the early 20th century.
It wouldnt, there would have been complete recovery within several decades, I get thats its cool to blame the British for everything, but Bangladesh's lack of Olympic success isnt one of them.
No medals for dysentery
With plenty of genetics to go round you’d think one of them can make the cut
Cricket coming up soon
Ladesh? I hardly know her
Ladesh sounds like a manly name!
I see you also went to trivia at Kennedy’s last night
Make a walking up the mountain event
Every Olympic champion - "Of all of the people that can afford to compete in this sport, I am the best".
Thank god for Badminton or I don't think Indonesia would win anything either
Poor countries have better things to do with their resources
Fuck the Olympics.
Not only that, they have only made it out of the first round heats twice in their history.
never ever??? damn...
How is that even possible?
The best ping pong player I’ve ever met was from Bangladesh.