The Indians simply don't really care about sports all that much, and are not very organized and disciplined, so don't have the motivation or the organization and discipline needed to produce winners. It's probably simply a question of priorities. But then, Britain seems to have done fine. Compared to, say, Holland, Germany, Scandinavian countries, India does not have as many impressively physical types. While probably physically inferior to the other type, they are still infinitely more fit than the average portly Westerner.Īt the end of the day India has many impressive physical types as well as many less impressive ones – in comparison to the West, I'd say India is physically no less impressive than say a country like Britain or France, with perhaps more muscular physiques because of less food and more hard labour. Remember, the foot soldiers of the British Empire were Indians, most often Sikhs or Punjabis.Īs for the smaller lower class types, a large proportion of them have fantastic muscular development with very little body fat, a result of little food and lots of hard labour. The place is awash in large-bodied, muscular types who one suspects would make fine atheletes and warriros. The suspicion is that in general, Indians have evolved to breed fast and die young under conditions of heavy population competition and high disease burden.īy contrast, yer typical chunky, beefy north European Swede or German evolved to hack down forests and tame the frozen, unforgiving earth. They are also prone to die young with heart disease. Likewise Indians are prone to develope diabetes type 2 in early middle age. Infany mortality – mainly due to low birth weight, is rife in India. On the point of Indians 'maturing physically later' – granted India (particularly in the northern Aryan states) does has its share of big, strong, healthy, powerful men, but the majority of the indian population resemble the pre-Aryan susbstratum of the population – undersized, weedy and physically weak and incapable of prolonged physical exertion. This further implies that the brain undergoes further development in the extended childhood, in that it is 'breaks free' of ancestral tight skull restraints. If a population 'matures mentally' later than another population, it implies that the first population is more neotonous,in terms of brain and nervous sysytem development, than the last population. Surely, Amrittraj is describing the well known biological phenomenom of neotony, in which species hang on to the foetal condition into adulthood (as an aside baby chimps more closely resemble adult humans than adult chimps do). Singh won more PGA tournaments after his 40th birthday than Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus combined. I don’t know how true that is, but it does fit with the career of Vijay Singh, the Indian golfer from Fiji, who pushed Tiger Woods out of #1 in 2004-2005, when in his 40s. Recently, Amritraj said ESPN on why there aren’t many prominent Indian athletes four decades after he made his mark: “Indians mature late physically and early mentally while people in the West mature early physically and late mentally.” Obviously, most Indians are too poor for sports, but the top 2 or 3 percent in India are as numerous as the entire population of Australia, so it hardly seemed unlikely 39 years ago that there would be more well-known Indian tennis players following Amritraj and his brother. I presumed there would be more like him in the future. He generally gave the impression that he was having a blast. He had a long, fun career as captain of India’s not-bad Davis Cup team, and was a regular on the international celebrity circuit, even appearing in a James Bond movie. (Here are video highlights of his five set victory over Bjorn Borg in the 1974 U.S. He never won a Grand Slam tournament, but he won some tour events, and he played many a hard-fought match in the Grand Slam against legends like Laver, Rosewall, Borg, Connors, and McEnroe.
#PRITHVIRAJ CHAUHAN EPISODE 129 TV#
On the other hand, there are the role models without followers. When tennis on TV suddenly became wildly popular in the early 1970s, one of the prominent names was dashing Indian sportsman Vijay Amritraj. Presumably, that’s true, but the thought, “I hope I grow up to be just like Se Ri Pak” doesn’t strike me as hugely galvanizing. Women’s Open in 1998 at Blackwolf Run set off South Korean dominance in women’s golf. For example, it is regularly explained that Korean lady golfer Se Ri Pak’s victory in the U.S. The role of role models in a country’s sports success is a curious one.