OP-ED: No medals for you!

What explains Bangladesh’s lack of Olympic success?

As the Olympics wind down in Tokyo, people of Bangladeshi descent are reminded again of a very unflattering fact: Bangladesh remains by far the biggest country which has never won a medal in the Olympics. Truth be told, it has never come close. 

For those of us who remember well the promise of Saidur Rahman Don’s entry into the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics as the first Bangladeshi participant in the world games, well that promise has been just that, promise that is nowhere close to be fulfilled.

A learned friend of mine who is professor in Dallas has cogently posited that if cricket, a non-Olympic sport, is set aside as an anomaly, then the deficit of one or both of the catalysts for Olympic success --state intervention and the place of sports in education -- explains much of this phenomenon. To this, I add a third catalyst -- mass culture -- to provide a bit more of the explanatory power.