If Dalrymple doesn’t appreciate the World Cup, he certainly isn’t going to think much of the Olympics:
Once again the only country of any size that, as far as I can see, emerges from the Olympic Games with any credit is India. Accounting for something like a sixth of the world’s population, it had not—the last time I looked at the table—won a single medal in any event. This proves that, at least in this regard, it has its priorities right. It has steadfastly refused to measure itself by the number of medals it wins at the Olympics and does nothing whatever to encourage its citizens to devote their lives to trying to jump a quarter of a centimeter longer or higher than anyone else in human history.