Re: Pakistan at Olympics 2008: Beijing and Beyond
spock
its is a sad situation with our sports. let me address your point and then illustrate with an example.
I think for us to have a good showing anywhere all the points I outlined must be followed
1) a training infrastructure a talent farm..where ppl rise to the top and the best of them then represents the antion
2) the best is solely picked on performance, and in individual sports like track..performance is hard to argue.
now let me illustrate the bad condition of
I spent one semester at Karachi University, I was in the track team. a day before the university games we were called and a store room was opened and jerseys pulled, and u could pick any number any size...and make sure that they had been washed because not all were which basically meant that since they were all in the same dabba that they all smelled of the khoon paseena of the prior group of atheletes that wore them.
so no training, no coach, nothing, heck I did not even know who was in the team. They just said oh haan tomorrow all u show up and we will do trials and pick the team.
i did my intermediate from pakistan as well and while the college was slightly better, it still was no way close to being comparable to a US highschool. I played a couple of sports and one of then, the basketball team we did not even have uniforms. the good thing was it was an ignored sport at other colleges too so #1 no one had uniforms and #2 we were all too cool in our own mids and wanted to wear what we wanted..but no support. cricket team and hockey team had 'coaches' basically professors who played in their college days..
contrast that to uni in US, uniforms, coaches, equipment managers, physical conditioning, discipline.
I mean could the difference be more stark?