It’s the Olympics again, which means that the family dinner table often involves conversations about how a nation, with more than 1 billion people, sends fewer people to the olympics than tiny island nations in the Caribbean.

It takes athletes who are dedicated to becoming the best along with the infrastructure to support them. Two recent articles illustrate the foundation of why India is unable to compete on the world athletic stage.

One article is about India and illustrates the challenges its athletes face in finding time to train and the solution developed by the Indian sporting authorities.

The second is about the United States steps to build a world class soccer team.

The contrast between the two approaches is why some countries compete even in their second tier sports while others don’t compete at all.