KARACHI: The victory of Pakistan’s Athar Butt in recent Commonwealth power lifting championship remained muted in country’s political and sensational driven media. Recently Pakistan has won two gold medals in 7th Commonwealth power lifting championship held at South Africa from September 10 to 17. One of them is Ather Butt, who outclassed all his rivals in 105Kg category raw bench press and equipped bench press events. Butt won gold medal in raw bench press by lifting 150 Kg and the second in equipped bench press by lifting in 175Kg in Africa. However, Butt’s achievements remained unknown back at home. Unfortunately power-lifting champion was not lauded as a hero for winning gold medal twice in the championship, first in United Kingdom in December 2011 and then in South Africa in September 2017. Butt says he does not care about the publicity because he plays for the honor of the country rather than personal glory. “I have always played to fly the flag of my country high which gives me satisfaction that I am doing something for my country. When the anthem is played and flag is flown the feeling can not be expressed because I am the reason of it”, Butt told Daily Times adding “it is not my passion it is my obsession”. Pakistan Power-lifting Federation General Secretary Rashed Malik said that there must be a infrastructure and support for the our athletes and for someone like Athar to reach such standards through his own financing, dedicated training and sheer effort, is something that would inspire many youngsters. Power-lifting is not part of Olympic games that is why it is not being supported like other sports and efforts are underway to get the it included in the list of Olympic Games, Malik said. After winning gold medal twice in the commonwealth Power-lifting championship, Athar Butt would have been given warm reception on his arrival but it could not happened, Malik lamented. Ather Butt retained national championship title from 1999 until 2015. He was the first Pakistani Power-lifter to establish 2 Asian records in RAW Power-lifting. He won Asian Raw Bench press Silver Medal, held in Melbourne, Australia, in 2014 and gold in Oceania/Asia Combined Raw Power-lifting Champion. Butt intends to train young players but needs proper place for the purpose. “I want to set up a gym to train youngsters to mould them into power lifters,” he added. Published in Daily Times, September 28th 2017.