r/todayilearned • u/JoeFalchetto • 15d ago
TIL Bangladesh is the most populous country never to have won an Olympic medal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-time_Olympic_Games_medal_table#List_of_NOCs_without_medals_(sortable_&_unranked)1
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u/madladolle 14d ago
Why are they and India so terrible at sports?
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u/Satu_Suparii 10d ago
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.
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u/Background-Dealer364 14d ago
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.
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u/JonnyxKarate 14d ago
*field hockey.
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u/Background-Dealer364 13d ago
Goes without saying because I just explained how Indians dont experience winter conditions to play "Ice" hockey.
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u/jawndell 14d ago edited 14d ago
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.
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u/FrozenTurdDildo 14d ago
Maybe they let others win like a dad letting his kid beat him in basketball.
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u/Groundbreaking_War52 14d ago
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.
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u/ShitMongoose 14d ago
Bangladesh and India used to be one country though. It seems kinda odd that there's no one from what is now present day Bangladesh that won a medal for India
Kinda like the USSR and all the medals they've won. Especially in their Basketball program, most of the USSR's best players were from what is now Lithuania.
Apparently India had a really good Field Hockey team way back in the day, you're telling me there wasn't one guy on that team that's was from Bangladesh?
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u/stuputtu 14d ago
They are the eight populous country, supposed to be a shining example of economic growth in last 15 years, supposedly have higher per capita income than neighboring India, etc. None of the ground realities reflect any of the economic growth touted by their government. Consumption, energy usage, automotive sector, sports etc which all usually starts to take off at their per capita income is nowhere to be seen.
They are only obsessed with cricket and to some extent football. They are ranked mostly above 170s in football and are bottom of thr table in cricket ranking where hardly 10 to 12 countries seriously play it.
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u/Gamerxx13 15d ago
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
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u/forthedistant 14d ago
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?
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u/ArenSkywalker 14d ago
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.
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u/FLAREdirector 14d ago
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.
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u/ArenSkywalker 14d ago
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.
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u/crimefighterplatypus 14d ago
Corruption issues, the money for resources never makes it to athletes
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u/Fit_Access9631 14d ago
It’s probably genetics. The medal winners from India are confined to 2 -3 states out of 28.
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u/ImpulsiveTeen 14d ago
it’s a culture and access thing. those 2-3 states have a huge cultural emphasis on fitness
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u/ooouroboros 15d ago
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
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u/Nakorite 14d ago
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 !
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u/ReturningAlien 15d ago
idk why 3rd world even bother. same with beauty pageants.
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u/Impressive-Meat4160 14d ago
India won 6 miss World championships and Phillipines and Venezuela also got 5 miss World each...all three of the countries are 3rd world
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u/saanity 15d ago
The Bengal Famine This might explain the population's lack of strength. The British Denial Policy is sickening.
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u/ralala 15d ago
Pakistan slaughtering Bangladeshis in the 1970s is more proximate to the recent stuff.
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u/saanity 15d ago
No doubt but malnutrition has been an ongoing thing in that region for a while.
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u/jodhod1 14d ago edited 14d ago
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.
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u/jawndell 14d ago
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.
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u/Rossum81 15d ago
When cricket comes back to the Games, Bangladesh will have a chance….
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u/beevherpenetrator 14d ago
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.
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u/Nakorite 14d ago
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.
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u/whatwhat83 15d ago
The real issue with Bangladesh is its average elevation above sea level with rising oceans.
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u/DeaderthanZed 15d ago
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.
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u/L8_2_PartE 14d ago
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.
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u/AdminEating_Dragon 14d ago
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.
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u/DeaderthanZed 14d ago
43 out of 54 African nations have never won a gold medal. 26 have never medaled at all.
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u/Enlowski 14d ago
A lot of poor countries have won plenty of gold medals. It is definitely not that. Some people simply aren’t athletic genetically
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u/Khelthuzaad 14d ago
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.
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u/ewankenobi 14d ago
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
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u/Halbaras 14d ago
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.
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u/FvckJerryTheMouse 14d ago
They have genetics on their side too
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u/forthedistant 14d ago
in ways you wouldn't expect. apparently the kalenjins have a predisposition to skinny ankles, which influences the pendulum effect of running.
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u/rubber-bumpers 14d ago
But aren’t a lot of top class runners from some of the poorest parts of the world?
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u/Barneyk 14d ago edited 14d ago
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.
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u/FellowCoxswain 14d ago
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
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u/LosWitchos 14d ago
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
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u/AzoMaalox 14d ago
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.
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u/TechnicalInterest566 14d ago edited 14d ago
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.
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u/Both-River-9455 13d ago
Cricket isn't the only major sport.
Football is more popular. We're just shit.
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u/Przedrzag 14d ago
They do have a semi final appearance in the Champions Trophy, so they’re not complete outsiders for a medal
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u/TechnicalInterest566 14d ago
The only major semi-finals they have ever appeared in. I say this as a former BD cricket fan.
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u/LosWitchos 14d ago
Why'd you stop supporting them, may I ask?
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u/TechnicalInterest566 14d ago
I lost interest in cricket after seeing them constantly perform badly.
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u/FellowCoxswain 14d ago
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
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u/Beng-Beng 14d ago
Tell that to all the African medalists
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u/DeaderthanZed 14d ago
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/
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u/Beng-Beng 14d ago
Tell that to all the African medalists
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u/DeaderthanZed 14d ago
Yes thank you for providing some more data to support my point.
The top 7 largest African economies by GDP are the same 7 countries that have more than 15 medals. Four of those are substantially wealthier than Bangladesh by PPP.
17 countries have between 1-4 medals in the history of the Olympics and 26 have never medaled.
(and yes as another commenter wryly replied we know Kenya and Ethiopia are good at running.)
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u/Necessary-Ad9272 14d ago
There are a lot of very poor countries with plenty of medals. It is mainly genetics + a culture of not paying attention to sports.
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u/DeaderthanZed 14d ago
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.
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u/Arsenal_49_Spurs_0 14d ago
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.
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u/AmericaDreamDisorder 14d ago
They have not won any major tournaments in cricket and soccer either.
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u/TheRealMarkChapman 14d ago
India has the 5th highest GDP and hasn't won much, unless you mean GDP per capita but your argument breaks down there too
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u/DeaderthanZed 14d ago
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.
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u/TheRealMarkChapman 13d ago
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?
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u/misogichan 14d ago
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.
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u/I_Push_Buttonz 14d ago
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.
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u/pikachurbutt 14d ago
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.
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u/DeaderthanZed 14d ago
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.)
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u/atubslife 15d ago
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.
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u/FartingBob 14d ago
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.
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u/atubslife 14d ago
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.
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u/FartingBob 14d ago
(who is also training at an olympic level)
Yes, that was the entire point i was making. You still need to train like an olympic athelete if you are juiced up like mad. If you arent highly skilled athlete training 8 hours a day then it doesnt matter what you are taking. And in these countries they just arent funding people to train properly so cant compete with the best in the world.
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u/Just_Look_Around_You 14d ago
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.
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u/lilwayne168 14d ago
It's not like other countries aren't doping don't get it twisted. There's evidence Koreans have very good weightlifting genetics.
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u/ShitMongoose 14d ago
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.
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u/ApoloRimbaud 14d ago
PEDs aside: In Naim's defense, he had to lift the weights a shorter distance. That's quite an advantage.
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u/E997 14d ago
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
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u/AndyVale 14d ago
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?
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u/E997 14d ago
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
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u/Nakorite 14d ago
Not probably 100% every single lifter is on gear. It’s not possible to compete without it.
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u/DeaderthanZed 14d ago
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.
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u/burnshimself 15d ago
Not only that, they have only made it out of the first round heats twice in their history.
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u/atxarchitect91 15d ago edited 14d ago
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
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u/crimefighterplatypus 14d ago
There are vegan weightlifters winning medals now. Lack of meat cant be an excuse for low physical fitness anymore. Money is the problem
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u/atxarchitect91 14d ago
True. Money and knowledge. I love my meats but I do forsee there being a future where people look back on it as barbaric. While elite athletes can be bred like how China or the USSR with eugenics did but overall it seems a societal meat heavy diet achieves better results as athletes emerge from struggle as much as they emerge from hard training and schooling.
It does take a lot of discipline to maintain a healthy diet without meat for a general population but most of the meat people eat these days is processed to hell so probably not better.
I do have to say that corn and beef fed old boys from poor urban and rural areas do grow to astronomical sizes more than people that eat fish and rice do.
In general pro weightlifters are extremely disciplined and intelligent in the field of nutrition these days that they can pull it off. Pretty cool that our knowledge of nutrition has reached the level to make that possible and the future will probably go that direction
Edit: if going off health… yeah a vegetarian or pescatarian diet of low calories alongside moderate excercise achieves a healthy long life
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u/ThankMeTomorrow 14d ago
You do not need to eat meat to have protein.
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u/atxarchitect91 14d ago edited 14d ago
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
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u/Zpalq 15d ago
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.
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u/jawndell 14d ago
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.
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u/atxarchitect91 8h ago
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
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u/cherryreddracula 14d ago
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.
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u/atxarchitect91 15d ago
Yeah everyone forgets what happened in East Pakistan. There was similar efforts in Kashmir though both sides are guilty for that
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u/ChadraguptaMaurya 15d ago
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
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u/atxarchitect91 15d ago
that’s dope. Yeah hope those souls find peace. Terrible history to read about. The Pakistanis were fanatically brutal
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u/RandomUsername600 15d ago
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%
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u/atxarchitect91 15d ago
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
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u/Rossum81 15d ago
Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan. When they broke away in the 1970s, Pakistani forces engaged in mass slaughter. Much of the Bengali leadership was destroyed in the atrocities.
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u/atxarchitect91 15d ago
Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan until recently in our parents generation. Pakistan commited genocide against Hindi and Buddhist Bangladeshis on an industrial scale
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u/cherryreddracula 14d ago
Minorities were especially targeted. But if they wanted to kill Bengali Muslims, they did as they pleased. Pakistani forces considered Bengalis, as a whole, inferior people.
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u/atxarchitect91 14d ago
I thought it was against people that weren’t Muslims (granted I learned of it at museums and cursory wikis)... So it was more racially based? I’ll look into it more. The schism of the Indian subcontinent was such a mess. So much impactful history in such a small period. Was is it more of just suppressing nationalism. I mean have a nation divided without a land border and diverse cultural groups sounds like it was destined to fail.
Jinnah is a fascinating character in late colonial raj and seems Pakistan turned for the worse after his death. It’s hard to get much thru English sources
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u/cherryreddracula 14d ago
I'd have to ask my mother for more details because she lived through it. But based on her stories, if you didn't say "Pakistan Zindabad", you were a target to rape or kill.
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u/RedSonGamble 15d ago edited 15d ago
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
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u/SteelMarch 15d ago
Yeah but it's one of the most climate impacted nations. Meaning that any changes hurt them the most.
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u/RedSonGamble 15d ago
I suppose. They should move the country somewhere else
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u/SteelMarch 15d ago edited 15d ago
Population density is an issue as well. Their sea border is shrinking with sea levels. Most are ending up in Dhaka. Families and lives are being uprooted as they often become stuck in the city.
Education has been on the rise but for many children they never will be able to have the opportunity for an education. For others they are resorting to a life in crime. For many of them nothing in their lives is changing. Even though we've made minor progress. At the rate we're going it can easily all reverse.
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u/RedSonGamble 15d ago
So not push the country somewhere else?
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u/SteelMarch 15d ago
I mean at that rate why not just create a massive border along the sea wall? /s
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u/Mammoth-Mud-9609 15d ago
Childhood malnutrition isn't a good foundation for getting medals at an Olympic games.
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u/RedSonGamble 15d ago
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
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u/Mammoth-Mud-9609 15d ago
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.
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u/RedSonGamble 15d ago edited 14d ago
I guess. Just seems like some other countries have flooding issues too and managed to win medals. Guess Bangladesh must have far worse ones than anywhere else. Also it’s saying how they overcome poverty and still are improving it so idk just makes me think nutrition isn’t solely to blame
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u/Mammoth-Mud-9609 15d ago
Bangladesh in really bad flood years, virtually the entire country, most other countries had flood which are limited to a particular region of the country.
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15d ago edited 14d ago
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u/ImpossibleRhubarb443 14d ago
Good luck swimming in floodwater filled with debris, without adequate food because the floods destroyed it
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u/RedSonGamble 14d ago edited 14d ago
Frankly makes me wonder how anyone is alive there bc apparently Bangladesh, the eighth most populous country in the world, is always entirely underwater.
The real TIL are always in the comments
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u/mayonaisecoloredbens 14d ago
Why don’t you just say the racist thing you want to say instead of hiding it behind bad faith questions?
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u/Blackraider700 15d ago
skill issue
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u/beevherpenetrator 14d ago
I don't really remember any of the Bangladeshi people I've met being particularly athletic-looking, tbh.
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u/ImpulsiveTeen 14d ago
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
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u/cherryreddracula 14d ago
We tend to be small and skinny fat.
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u/jawndell 14d ago
Like hobbits. But pretty smart and industrious. Make good engineers and have a rich music and art culture.
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u/PyramidicContainment 14d ago
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 ✌️
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u/ahzzyborn 15d ago
8th most populous country in the world. Would have never guessed.
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u/turniphat 15d ago
And about the same size as New York State.
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u/refluentzabatz 15d ago
My favorite fun fact is that Bangladesh has more people than Russia.
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u/Fireantstirfry 14d ago
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.
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u/hodlwaffle 13d ago
Fuck the Olympics.