Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Another Olympian passes away without bothering the spineless sports system of the country. Raja Mohammad Fazil, a 4x100m athlete who represented Pakistan in the Helsinki (Finland) Olympics in 1952 and took the team to semifinal heats, breathed his last in Rawalpindi Monday without getting noticed by sports manager in the country. He was later buried in his home town in Gujar Khan on Tuesday. He together with Mohammad Sharif, Abdul Aziz and Mohammad Aslam represented Pakistan in 400×100 relay. The Pakistan quartet after clearing the initial heats competed in the semifinals heat of the Olympics event.

For the last three months he had been fighting death at PAEC Hospital in Islamabad without any knowledge of sports administrator especially the officials of Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP). Such has been the magnitude of heedlessness in the prevailing sports system in the country that not even single sports related personality was present at his funeral.

Even the AFP was taken by surprise when it was informed that one of the oldest Olympian dies at 92. “Is that so? we never knew anything about him. We don’t have any track of Raja Fazil but we should have,” a spokesman for the AFP admitted. The AFP official, however, said that keeping track of Olympians and athletes was the responsibility of all. Even Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) officials had no clue about Fazil who was part of 38-member Pakistan contingent to Helsinki Olympics in 1952. The country is just fresh from the tragic death of hockey legend Mansoor who not only captained the national team in 1996 Olympics but also played the decisive role in winning two last major international hockey events for the country in 1994. Though everyone knew about Mansoor no one (Pakistan Hockey Federation or PSB) tried to share his woes during his troubled days. The legend death was more a result of the torrid time he had gone through following his suspension from employment and later developing serious family crises due to financial problems. Fazil’s death gives another awakening call to concern sports administrators and that is not to forget those who were part of our glory in yester years.

Published in Daily Times, May 24^th 2018.