Reminds me of the soccer team vs the basketball team.
Their country has actually come a long way in solving their malnutrition problems, but said problems were pretty bad back when these girls were about 5-7-ish. Give them a few more years, and the new batch of teenager basketball players will probably average taller.
The next issue is one of selection base. The population difference is a factor of 50!
Find the 12 tallest 16 year-old girls out of a population of 6.4 million, or the 12 tallest 16 year-old girls out of a population of 330 million. These results are predictable. The same factor skews results in the USA's favour in a lot of international competitions like the Olympics; they have a very high population to pick from, AND the money to give their representing team each their own full-time individual trainers if need be (not to mention sponsoring athletes so THEY can train full-time, instead of having to work shifts in their aunt's convenience store so they can afford training equipment... or to eat, for that matter.)
The next issue is one of selection base. The population difference is a factor of 50!
Find the 12 tallest 16 year-old girls out of a population of 6.4 million, or the 12 tallest 16 year-old girls out of a population of 330 million. These results are predictable. The same factor skews results in the USA's favour in a lot of international competitions like the Olympics; they have a very high population to pick from, AND the money to give their representing team each their own full-time individual trainers if need be (not to mention sponsoring athletes so THEY can train full-time, instead of having to work shifts in their aunt's convenience store so they can afford training equipment... or to eat, for that matter.)