What facilities do the African countries have comparable to those of bigger and more advanced countries? Yet they still win medals galore. Eg. why can’t we have world level marathon runners? Why no one comes anywhere near top level performance in athletics? Africans do. How about table tennis, badminton, …?
Whatever little money there is, it’s poured into that time waster that is cricket. Even squash has been abandoned (yes, it is not an Olympic sport).
Africans are used to running miles to catch the parcels being dropped from the sky, so they win in marathons.
Unfortunately people are too well off in Pakistan so they have become lazy. We should get people in the backward areas to run more often for their rations and then send a coach full of them to the olympics like Ethiopia or Kenya do.
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Sumaira Zahoor, of Pakistan, runs in a qualifying heat of the 1500m at the 2004 Olympic Games Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004 in Athens, Greece. Zahoor did not qualify for the next round. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
Women's 1500m Round 1 - Heat 3
Place Athlete Country Time
1 Maria Cioncan ROM 4:06.68*
2 Carmen Douma-Hussar CAN 4:06.90*
3 Wioletta Janowska POL 4:06.91*
4 Nancy Jebet Lagat KEN 4:06.94*
5 Kutre Dulecha ETH 4:06.95*
6 Olga Yegorova RUS 4:07.14
7 Natalia Rodriguez ESP 4:07.19
8 Hind Dehiba FRA 4:07.96
9 Nelya Neporadna UKR 4:08.60
10 Trine Pilskog NOR 4:08.61
11 Sarah Jamieson AUS 4:09.25
12 Judit Varga HUN 4:09.36
13 Joanne Pavey GBR 4:12.50
14 Tatiana Borisova KGZ 4:13.36
*15 Sumaira Zahoor PAK 4:49.33 *
Rosa Saul ANG DNS
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Pakistan's only female Olympic athlete has humble ambitions
Sun Aug 8,
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The only woman in Pakistan's Olympic track and field team for Athens has ruled out targeting a medal and has instead set herself the humble ambition of not finishing last.
*"I know the star-studded line-up in the 1,500 meters leaves me nowhere in the medal race but for me the main thing is that I don't come last," Sumera Zahoor told AFP. *
Pakistan's 45-member contingent for the Athens Games beginning next week includes two female athletes with 16-year-old Rubab Reza set to become the country's first female swimmer to jump into an Olympic pool.
Pakistan's conservative society allows restricted participation of females in sporting events.
Before Sumera, Shabana Akhtar became the first ever female athlete to represent Pakistan in an Olympics when she competed at Atlanta 1996.
Shazia Hidayat featured in the Sydney Olympics four years later.
"Shabana and Shazia were established athletes and I am just four years into athletics but I would try to do my best and gain experience which would help me in the 2006 Asian Games in Qatar," Sumera said.
"It's an honour to represent your country in the Olympics but I want this honour with grace so that I am not ashamed of myself," said the 24-year-old.
The International Olympic Committee (news - web sites) allows member countries which do not qualify from leadup events to send at least one male and female athlete to compete in track and field events at the Games.
"Since our standard is far behind other countries, we can't qualify for the Olympics, so I am going there on invitation and would like to improve my personal record," said Sumera.
Her first participation at the international level was at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea (news - web sites), where she finished the 1,500 metres race with five runners behind her.
Sumera won a silver medal in the South Asian Federation Games in Islamabad in March this year.
"Winning a silver medal in the SAF Games with a Pakistan record of four minutes 31 seconds is my greatest achievement," said the Rawalpindi resident.
"You achieve something when you get competition and at the SAF Games I was pushed hard by an Indian athlete so I hope to better my record in Athens."
She said she was a novice to Olympics but her desire to compete was enough for her.
KO for Pakistan Olympic dreams
By Rifat Jawaid
BBC Urdu Service, in Athens
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Mehrullah takes a tumble in his defeat by the Cuban, Ortiz
KO for Pakistan Olympic dreams **With their hockey side's humiliating defeat by Spain and now the demise of its boxers,
Pakistan's Olympic team is resigned to returning home medal-less once more. **
The hockey team was the major medal hope for Pakistan this year, as every year. The country's only Olympic gold always comes from this sport.
But it is a little-known fact Pakistan has won medals in other sports.
Wrestler Muhammed Bashir and boxer Hussain Shah both won bronzes in the 1960 and 1988 Olympics respectively.
*So, when a record five boxers qualified for Athens - Faisal Karim, Mehrullah, Ahmed Ali Khan, Asghar Ali Shah and Suhail Ahmed - everyone in Pakistan hoped for a renewed medal haul. *
*Tough draw *
These young and enthusiastic boxers helped win Pakistan all 10 gold medals available in the South Asian Federation Games in March this year.
They added three more golds in Olympic qualifiers.
** "I had come here as the Asian Games champion, but I was taken aback by the standard of some of my opponents "**
*Mehrullah *
*However, Pakistan's participation in Athens is over. Their last hope, Ahmed Ali Khan, surrendered meekly to Kazakhstan's Gennadiy Golovkin in the 75kg middleweight. *
*"We had a very tough draw in this year's Olympics. Our boys were pitted against three world champions from Cuba and Kazakhstan," says coach Zaigham Maseel. *
"Having said that, the experience we gained here will be immensely helpful in our future pursuit of medals."
Cricket obsession
*According to Asghar Ali Shah, it was not the tough draw that proved instrumental in dashing Pakistan's medal hopes. *
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He told the BBC: "It is the continuous apathy shown by the powers that be in Pakistan towards us that has destroyed our medal aspirations.
"The [boxers from Kazakhstan and Cuba] have two hands, we have two hands. What's the difference? The difference is that they travelled to five or six countries in their preparations for the Olympics.
*"We could only afford to travel to Cuba before coming here. How do you expect us to visit five or six countries on the 100,000 rupees ($2,000) we receive from the government as an annual grant?" asked Shah. *
*He defeated Uzbekistan's Volodymyr Kravets - a much higher-ranked fighter - convincingly to reach the round of 16 but lost there to Cuba's legendary Mario Cesar Kindelan. *
Kindelan is the reigning world champion in the 60kg lightweight category.
Shah's team colleague, Mehrullah, says the standard at the Olympics is just too high for South Asian boxers.
"I had come here as the Asian Games champion, but I was taken aback by the standard of some of my opponents.
"Had I had a few preparatory bouts with them prior to coming here, you would have seen a totally different Mehrullah."
Hussain Shah's bronze in Seoul provided a much-needed fillip for boxing in Pakistan, with people taking up the sport in droves.
But boxing, much like hockey, still struggles to find prominence in a nation obsessed by cricket
Sporting pangs across the border too
PRADEEP VIJAYAKAR
MUMBAI: Like India, its neighbour Pakistan is also having a horrible time in sport with the Olympics no-show in hockey, boxing, athletics and swimming leading the way.
A 4-0 loss to Spain in men’s hockey dashed Pakistan’s medal hopes. And it was followed by a debacle in another sport which has been their domain - squash. Hopes were raised of a Pakistani winning the World Junior squash title after 18 long years since the all-time great Jansher Khan won it, when three home boys made the last four and Yasir Butt reached the final. However, Egyptian Ramy Ashour beat Yasir 9-5, 10-8, 9-3 in the presence of the country’s prime minister.
The silver lining was Amir Atlas, a nephew of Jansher, coming to the semis to get a special award. It may be remembered that Indian top seed Saurav Ghoshal was beaten by a Pakistani in the round of 16.
Pakistan’s hockey defeat has been taken sportingly by its foreigner coach Roelant Oltmans. “There is no excuse for the defeat. We did not play like our opponents who played a fantastic game and won a match of high importance,” he said.
Oltmans, who took over Pakistan team’s charge nine month ago, said defence of his team was not solid as it gave a lot of space for the rivals to make inroads and score goals. “Our forwards failed to rise on the occasion and we did not get penalty corners which resulted in the defeat,” he remarked. “It is really sad to end up in that manner in Olympics but the result of one match in a pool of death changed the whole scenario.”
Assistant coach Tahir Zaman said the players failed to exhibit structural and organised hockey which they demonstrated in the earlier match, especially against Germany.
Pakistani girl Rubab Raza, 13 years and six months old, became the youngest sportswoman to represent Pakistan in any Olympics event when she contested in the 50m freestyle heat. Unfortunately, she finished fifth clocking 30.10 seconds and could not qualify for the final.
Her father later took pot shots at the sports organisations. Syed Sibtain Raza criticised the Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF) for not extending enough cooperation to his daughter who he claimed could have produced better results. “The federation’s cold response towards Rubab is responsible for this poor performance,” her father said in Lahore. “Yes, I am happy my daughter achieved a feat, but had the federation provided her coaches and other training facilities, she could have qualified for the final,” Raza added. He explained that he hired a coach from his own pocket while the federation did not arrange even a pool for her training.
He pointed out that the federation held a training camp at Islamabad despite the fact Rubab could be better trained at Lahore where she lives.
Raza said he met PSF secretary Kamran Butt before holding of the last Age Group Championship to get the national record so that Rubab could be trained in a better way, but after waiting for hours, he could not get it.
He said the Pakistan Sports Board and the Punjab Sports Board had supported Rubab to some extent but the PSF did nothing.
There were other Pakistani disappointments.
Their only male athlete, Sajid, was eliminated in the heats of 400m after he finished 48th in a field of 63 runners. He timed 47.10 seconds well below his own national record. He blamed the new track: “It was very hard and solid. I was never comfortable on it, neither during the training nor during competition.”
The other member of Pakistan team, Sumaira Manzoor, will take part in the 1500m on Aug 24. Both the athletes are participating in Olympics through special invitation cards, which International Olympic Committee gives to the countries, which fail to qualify.
In boxing Pakistan’s campaign ended on a disappointing note when middleweight Ahmad Ali Khan was whipped 31-10 by Gennadiy Golovkin of Kazakhstan in the second round. Star boxers Meherullah and Asghar Ali Shah had lost earlier.
Now Pakistan’s only hope is that cricket coach Bob Woolmer masterminds a win in the Videocon Cup so that Pakistan’s cup of woe won’t overflow like India’s after their loss to Pakistan.
Sajid just wants to give ‘his best’ in 400m race
From Khalid Hussain in Athens
PAKISTAN’S champion athlete Muhammad Sajid will make his Olympic debut here at the Olympic Stadium tonight (Friday) knowing the fact he stands little chance in the first round heat.
Taking part in the men’s 400m race, Sajid will be competing against athletes from seven other nations, all of them with better Personal Best than Sajid, a wild card entrant.
“There are some good runners in my heat but I am not feeling intimidated,” says Sajid who has a personal best of 47.10 seconds and season’s best of 47.45 seconds.
The best runner in Sajid’s heat is Michael Blackwood of Jamaica with a personal best of 44.60 and season’s best of 44.74 seconds.
American sprinter Michael Johnson holds both the world and Olympics records in this event. His world record is 43.18 seconds ahieved at Seville (Spain) in 1999.
The top two in each heat the next eight fastest athletes will qualify for the semifinals. Sajid is aware he stands no chance of reaching the semifinals but wants to better his personal best in the heat. “To give my best at the Olympics will be a big achievement for me.”
August 20
Men’s 400m Round 1 - Heat 7
Place Athlete Country Time
1 Michael Blackwood JAM 45.23*
2 Hamdan O Al Bishi KSA 45.31*
3 Saul Weigopwa NGR 45.59
4 Matija Sestak SLO 45.88
5 Yuki Yamaguchi JPN 46.16
6 Nagmeldin Ali Abubakr SUD 46.32
***7 Sajid Muhammad PAK 47.45 ** *
8 Moses Kamut VAN 48.14
Some other results (old) for Pakistani Participants in the Olympics:
Khurram Inam
Shooting
Date Round Result
08/21 Men's Skeet Qualification - Day 1 114 *(37th) *
Mumtaz Ahmed
Swimming
Date Round Result
08/17 Men's 100m Freestyle - ** Heat 1** 59.19 *(6th) *
Well at least our guys tried, I don't really care if we win or not. The boxers were ok, I think a few of the guys won a match or two. Plus theres always Amir Khan right...