The Chinese Bid for Olympic Mastery

One of the interesting takeaways from watching the Winter Olympics is seeing the Chinese fielding teams in biathalon, cross country skiing, curling, women's ice skating, etc. which are not at all traditional sports in China. In this way, China is consciously acting like the US, Russia, France, Germany, etc. that regularly field big Olympic teams - in a word, like a global power.

By contrast, the two other countries you often hear compared with Russia and China as rising 21st century powers, Brazil and India (often referred to as the BRIC nations), have not used the Olympics to demonstrate their membership in the global power club.

Brazil fields a sizeable summer Olympic team (277 competitors in the 2008 field - closer to the 233 Canadians or 260 South Koreans than the 640 Chinese, 600 Americans or 540 Germans), but only sent 5 to the Winter Olympics this year - fewer than Monaco or Andorra. India only sent 57 to the 2008 summer Olympics, and only 3 to the Winter Olympics.

As far as the Winter Olympics go, neither Brazil nor India has a significant "winter sports" tradition, although both have ski areas. That does not seem to have stopped China, or other states like the UK, Australia or South Korea where I'm not sure that biathalon or curling or whatever has a deep hold.

To some degree, it looks like wealth is the biggest factor. Brazil's per capita GDP is around $10,500/person, and it fields teams in line (when population is factored in) with other countries at its wealth level like Kazakhstan and South Africa. India is only at $3,000/person - and very few countries at that economic level are able to field sizeable teams. At this measure, China, with its $6,000/person GDP really seems to be an outlier. Countries like Turkmenistan, Egypt and Angola, which have similar GDPs, field much smaller teams.*

It seems pretty clear (especially after hosting the 2008 Olympics) that China is making a concerted bid to play in the "big leagues" of Olympic competition - which means fielding full slates of competitive athletes for most sports, not just traditional local favorites. It will be interesting to see if Brazil begins to follow suit after the 2016 Rio Olympics.

*Ukraine, which has a $6000-ish/person GDP also fields large Olympic teams - 254 for the summer Olympics and 50 for the winter, perhaps as a vestige of its time as a Soviet republic.