The Olympic-size difference between India and China

India produces individual excellence despite the system’s limitations; in China, individual success is a product of the system.

The Tokyo Olympic Games are over, and the Japanese people and government have heaved a sigh of relief that the spectacle passed without a major Covid-19 outbreak in the athletes’ village or other disasters. Here in India, the celebrations of the country’s first gold medal in the men’s javelin throw—and its best-ever medal performance at a single Olympics—have not yet subsided. But how good, really, is our best?