Daily Times

PARIS: When the 33rd Summer Olympic Games explode into action with a colourful and vibrant opening ceremony here on Friday, July 26, (today), Pakistan will be participating in the quadrennial event with a small 18-member contingent — only seven athletes (athletics, swimming and shooting) and 11 officials. We should not be comparing ourselves with our neighbour India whose more than 100 athletes will try to achieve Olympic glory by finishing on the podium of the world’s biggest sporting stage. The mega event concludes on August 11. Having previously hosted in 1900 and 1924, Paris is the second city ever to host the Summer Olympics three times, after London which hosted the 1908, 1948 and 2012 Games. More than ten thousand athletes from more than 200 countries across the globe are attending the 2024 Summer Olympics in France’s capital city. And for the first time ever, the split will be 50% men and 50% women. Those 10,500 athletes will compete in 32 different sports and 339 events.

The Paris Games organising committee has opted for an unprecedented and wildly ambitious opening ceremony which will shun the usual format of a parade and fireworks at the athletics stadium. Instead, it will take place on the River Seine, with athletes set to sail through La Ville Lumière — The City of Light — on a flotilla of boats in front of a crowd of up to nearly half a million spectators. Temporary venues have also been built at Paris’s top monuments, meaning much of the sport will take place in the centre of the city with the capital’s fabled landmarks in the background. The Stade de France will host the closing ceremony. Artistic director Thomas Jolly will oversee a breathtaking show featuring over a hundred performers, including acrobats, dancers, and circus artists. Such performance will feature an original soundtrack, new musical pieces, and appearances by renowned global artists. Audiences will be treated to aerial acts, massive sets, elaborate costumes, and impressive lighting effects, taking them on a journey through both history and the future. It will also highlight traditional elements such as the display of national flags, the athletes’ parade, and the handover of the Olympic flag to the Los Angeles 2028 organising committee, ensuring memorable moments for all.

Pakistan participation in the Olympics since 1948: After division of British India in 1947, new country Pakistan first participated at the Olympic Games in 1948 in London, and has sent athletes to compete in every Summer Olympic Games since then, except when they participated in the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Russia (then Soviet Union). At the Paris Games, Pakistan is hoping to end its 32-year medal drought through star javelin thrower and world silver medallist Arshad Nadeem and shooters GM Bashir, Joseph Gulfam and Kishmala Talat. Swimmers Mohammad Ahmed Durrani and Jehanara Nabi and sprinter Faiqa Riaz are representing Pakistan on wildcards. GM Bashir and Joseph Gulfam earned the Olympic berths during the World Championship in Egypt in October 2022. Bashir did so by claiming the first ever bronze in Pakistan’s World Championship history in the 25m rapid fire pistol. Joseph, on the other hand, finished sixth in the same event to claim Olympics quota in the 10m air pistol. Kishmala qualified for the Paris Olympics after winning silver in the Asian Championship in Indonesia early this year. She also became the first Pakistan shooter to win a bronze in the Hangzhou Asian Games last year in China. Kishmala will compete in the 10m air pistol and 25m pistol events, going for glory abroad and defying stereotypes back home. The 21-year-old Kishmala, who comes from a military family, is the first Pakistan woman to qualify for Olympic shooting. The million-dollar question here is whether the Pakistan athletes would be able to end country’s Olympic medal drought since 1992? No doubt, they will be facing an uphill task in Paris and Arshad is the only medal hope at the Olympics.

Since independence Pakistan sports are on the map. International sports performances by Pakistan in the last seven decades have much to commend them. Arguably, Pakistan’s performances in many sports have inspired many countries to emulation to future achievements. But the last two decades have been a different story altogether. Over the years, Pakistan sports have gone to the dogs. Pakistan’s performance in international sports is no longer consistent with its population and economic bases. In the 1950s and early 1960s, we were amongst the top five sporting nations in Asia and have now come down to the lowest. We used to excel in major sports. Now we are not even amongst the first 30 out of 45 participating countries even in the Asian Games.

Only 10 Olympic medals for Pakistan since 1948: Anybody outside the country who spent time watching the last two Olympic Games — Tokyo 2020 in Japan and Rio 2016 in Brazil —might not realise that sports are played in Pakistan. At the Tokyo Olympic Games, Pakistan had sent juts ten athletes. A nation of 240 million was represented by just ten sportspersons. The 10 comprised seven men and three women, competing in athletics, badminton, judo, shooting, swimming and weightlifting. Before that, at the Rio Olympic Games 2016, Pakistan had its smallest-ever contingent: just seven athletes who competed in the qualification phases of their respective events and none of them went beyond this stage and neither did they look close to competing with their highly skilled, trained and battle-hardened opponents. And once again, Pakistan is being represented by only seven athletes at the Paris Games.

Since 1948, hockey had been Pakistan’s main hope for an Olympic medal. The hockey squad always formed a major part of Pakistan’s Olympic contingent. It is lamentable that Pakistan hockey, which remained up in the clouds for more than three decades, is not the same force that it used to be, and failed to qualify for three consecutive Olympic Games: Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. Pakistan hockey, which inspired millions around the globe, last won an Olympic medal in Barcelona 1992, it was also the last Olympic medal of the country. It is sad that Tokyo 2020 was no different from Rio 2016, London 2012, Beijing 2008 or any of the preceding Olympics going back to Atlanta 1996, with Pakistan returning empty-handed from each of the last seven Olympic Games. The sum total of Pakistan’s Olympic achievements since 1948 is ten medals. Eight in hockey, including three golds, one each in wrestling (bronze in Rome 1960) and boxing (bronze in Seoul 1988).

At the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, Pakistan’s Syed Hadi Haider Naqvi did pick up a bronze medal in the demonstration sport of taekwondo, but as the sport was not given full status then, the medal was not recognized in the official tally. Pakistan’s first ever participation in the Winter Olympic Games was at Vancouver 2010 when Mohammad Abbas became Pakistan’s first athlete to qualify in the Alpine Skiing (Giant Slalom) category. Pakistan also participated in 2014 Sochi and 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics but was not able to win any medal.

Since 1948, hockey had been Pakistan’s main hope for an Olympic medal. The hockey squad always formed a major part of Pakistan’s Olympic contingent. It is lamentable that Pakistan hockey, which remained up in the clouds for more than three decades, is not the same force that it used to be, and failed to qualify for three consecutive Olympic Games: Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. Pakistan hockey, which inspired millions around the globe, last won an Olympic medal in Barcelona 1992, it was also the last Olympic medal of the country. It is sad that Tokyo 2020 was no different from Rio 2016, London 2012, Beijing 2008 or any of the preceding Olympics going back to Atlanta 1996, with Pakistan returning empty-handed from each of the last seven Olympic Games. The sum total of Pakistan’s Olympic achievements since 1948 is ten medals. Eight in hockey, including three golds, one each in wrestling (bronze in Rome 1960) and boxing (bronze in Seoul 1988).

It is lamentable that Pakistan haven’t won a medal of any colour for more than three decades. The fact is that Pakistan continues to nosedive further as time passes and one isn’t even sure if we have hit our lowest point yet. Over the years, not one, not two but almost all sports have experienced a sharp slump in our country. It goes beyond misfortune and carelessness and instead appears to be a trend. Since 1997, five years after Pakistan’s last Olympic medal in any sport, Pakistan’s superiority in squash is no more. Like the Olympics and hockey, squash has nothing to showcase since the 1990s. The older generation still talks and recall with great delight the spellbinding achievements of the past while the present generation only has tales of the past to live on. Pakistan had serious hopes of an Olympic medal – its first since 1992 and first ever in athletics — when Arshad Nadeem arrived at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium for the men’s javelin final. Arshad, Pakistan’s first-ever track-and-field athlete to qualify for the Olympic Games, had made history when he reached the final and was aiming to do better but eventually finished fifth.

What’s wrong with Pakistan sports: Lack of availability of proper facilities and infrastructure, inadequate role of sports federations and lack of support from the government has badly affected Pakistan’s graph in sports. Perhaps the biggest reason for the extraordinary decline in sports in Pakistan is lack of funding and vision. Pakistan’s sports budget is the lowest in South Asia, less than that of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even Afghanistan. Governments all over the world keep sports and education as their top priority, build infrastructure, hold talent development programmes for players and promote medical sciences in sports to compete the world of sports. But in Pakistan it is totally opposite because sports are not our priority.

It is also very unfortunate that Pakistan sports, over the years, have become politicized and nepotistic. In the national sphere and the sporting arena the root of our dilemma is the notorious system of patronage and imposed cronies, to the exclusion of merit and professionalism. Under the powerful patron’s benevolent gaze, the pick and choose appointees can survive scandals and failures that would crush an ordinary mortal. These are times when one fails to figure out what is keeping Pakistan sports alive. In other countries, people running sports affairs contribute by taking professional decisions and by executing them with competence rather than on the basis of personal preference and bias. But frankly, we are not such a nation. In Pakistan most things defy logic. With the passage of time we have all come to accept the reality of our warped existence and begun to believe that if something has to go wrong, there are over 100 percent chances that it will happen here.

What more depressing is that sports activities in schools, colleges and universities have touched an all-time low because of diminishing sports fields, poor systems and lack of interest in sports by young generation that have many other options to keep them occupied. But perhaps the worst aspect of this development is that educational administrators no longer feel that sports are an integral part of all decent educational systems. Some even think it is a waste of time. This is one of the main reasons why student representation in our national sports teams is becoming negligible compared to the past when most of our national teams thrived on student and university representation. This particular flaw in our educational system is also one of the major causes of intolerance in our society.

At the same time, cricket has overshadowed all other sports in the country including our national game — field hockey. Television, commercialisation and the advertising world have promoted cricket to an extent that it has become a Mount Everest that is badly affecting other sports in the country. Popularity of cricket, especially among the younger generation, has prevented the growth of other sports activities. Government officials and private sector are not interested in investing in anything other than cricket. Patronising only cricket and ignoring other sports is very unfair. Cricket does not have the kind of global competition that other sports have as its playing is limited to a handful of largely Commonwealth countries.

We have also become a funny nation that likes to live in a world of dreams and fantasies. We dream of excellence at international level in sports without even realising that the present sports set-up in Pakistan just does not have the capacity to deliver. Therefore, those who feel that the present set-up can be result oriented are not living in a realistic world. Modern sports structures all over the world have sports institutes as integral components of their systems. Even Bangladesh has one. It is unfortunate that after 76 years of independence we have not been able to establish one. There are a variety of reasons for this vital missing link in our sports. People at the helm of affairs either do not realise the importance of this institution or hesitate simply because they do not know how to go about it.

Honest and determined efforts needed for excellence: One honestly feels that we have the potential to produce good results if, and it is a big IF, we can evolve a modern scientific system — not too ambitious but one based on our national ground realities, available manpower and above all the capacity to deliver. The entire mind-set has to be changed. The subject of sports is now a science and this is the starting point that everybody associated with sports in Pakistan needs to accept. There are certain imperatives and they need to be understood clearly. We also need to drill home the importance of sports in our national priorities: how sports provide the only recreational oxygen for masses, educate tolerance and are the only uniting national gel at this critical juncture in our history. It is time for the government to realise that Chinese sports model has to be followed as far as possible to channelise our youth and provide them avenues to excel. Such a strategy will automatically eliminate problem confronting our youth. Thus the present government, the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA), the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB), the Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination (IPC) and the responsible sports officials of national sports federations should sincerely cooperate to develop such a vision for the good of Pakistan youngsters.

Foreign coaches, sports exchanges, streamlined domestic competitions and sustained training camps should form integral components of this plan. This plan should be gotten approved from the Prime Minister, so that funds allocation doesn’t become a problem. The IPC Ministry, the POA and the PSB should then hold an in-depth meeting with office bearers of the concerned national sports federations to solicit their advice and opinion on improvement in this plan. Granted that the current situation seems to be hopeless but one has always been an optimist and believe that where there is a will, there is a way. Sports are neither a burden on national economy nor an impediment to development, but an engine for economy and development and means to strengthen the socio-economic order. It is indeed a force multiplier to strengthen the federation and promote peace and harmony among provinces. In this fast-changing milieu, Pakistan needs to take a fresh start with a new, realistic and scientific sports narrative that may lead to a comprehensive sports policy and develop Pakistan as a powerhouse of sports.

Sports are littered with examples of men and women who have performed well against the odds — that’s partly what keeps us watching as spectators. Confucius said: “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” This quote, in part, explains why sports people can recover from adversity and perform well. Some would argue that failure is a necessary part of the process of success. The important thing here is not the adversity that is faced but how those affected react to the adversity. One can respond by giving in and allowing the adversity to perpetuate, developing a culture of failure, or by demonstrating a dogged determination to rebuild and rise again. To rise above again, Pakistan sports require strong financial backup, commitment and self-belief. Only hard and incessant efforts lead to success. Only then the elusive triumphs will replace the current tragedies that demean the country once basking in Olympic golds and world crowns. In the absence of these, we should not dream of reaching the skies. To rise from nothing, against all adversity, and reach the pinnacle, that is a dream that is as powerful today as it has ever been. Olympians are marked by their heroics, their endeavor and their struggle against the odds. Pakistan has no Olympians of note for our present generation, which should be a wake-up call for the government, and the country’s sporting authorities. The Paris Olympics 2024 will be no different if the current crisis in Pakistan sports continues.