You are the authoritarian ruler of a developing country. The country has a very strong military but in other regards, it lags behind the industrialised world.
Your advisor tells you that it might be a good idea to invest in a few sports to create better PR for your people, ideology, and regime. They suggest that you spend considerable state resources to find, promote, and develop talent in a few strategic sports (ones that are a good fit for the culture and aren't yet dominated by the First World). Even though you don't have as much money as more powerful countries, you could devote a greater percentage of the national budget to the effort and start from the really really young. Also, you would have significant cultural advantages (ex the ability to push athletes really really hard) and with the tools of your authoritarian system you could drastically restructure huge aspects of society to promote these goals without much effective backlash or anyone to veto. All the while, this could create a vehicle for nationalism and patriotism and to show the world that your system has something to offer.
It's expected that if you make enough of an effort, within two Olympic Games and perhaps even sooner at regional and international tournaments of a smaller scale, your nation could start making big splashes. As of now, the other countries of the world are distracted by other things.
So what do you say?
Would you invest in this Olympic Endeavour? Or does this sound like a folly? Keep in mind that efforts to industrialise the country and fix social issues are not mutually exclusive to this option. Please justify.
