ABSTRACT
The growth of modern sport in Asia varied self-evidently with the pace of evolution of the ‘sports movements’ in the individual countries. The Asian nations’ participation in the Olympic Games reveals, at merely one level, very different rates of progress. According to the Guinness Olympics Fact Book, during the 40-year period from the first Olympic Games (held in 1896 in Athens) to the eleventh (held in 1936 in Berlin), only two Asian countries won medals-India and Japan. And in the longer period up to the fourteenth Olympics (held in 1948 in London) only four Asian countries won medalsIndia, Japan, Korea and Iran.1
