‘Nothing could come between me and the gold medal’

Wushu athlete Maaz braves several serious injuries in pursuit of South Asian Games’ top prize

KARACHI: ‘Find what you love and then let it kill you’. When great German novelist Henry Charles Bukowski wrote that, he knew what he was talking about. Passion for something you love ignites a fire inside a person which knows no bounds. It creates a situation where a person transcends from the physical, finite state into a realm of dreams.

This may certainly sound unnecessarily dramatic, but it holds its significance in the case of wushu athlete Maaz Khan, who did not let unbearable pain and several injuries stand in the way of proving that he was the best in his category (70kg) at the South Asian Games.



Maaz, who claimed gold by defeating Indian athlete Mukesh Chaudary in the final, sustained a serious injury on his shin during the quarter-final clash with Sri Lanka’s Nid Aberathane. With the team doctor staying with the participants in Shillong and Maaz in Guhawiti, the Karachi-born decided to tend to his injuries himself.

The next day he fought with Bangladeshi athlete Anisur Rahman in the semi-final and triumphed again, but sustained even more injuries and once again decided to tend to them on his own.

“I didn’t want anything to come between me and the gold medal, so I decided not to tell anyone,” Maaz told The Express Tribune. “I used a cold spray, applied the bandages and took some painkillers and was ready to fight. There was only one thing on my mind; to defeat my opponent.”



It was only after achieving his objective of bagging gold in the Games that Maaz realised just how much pain he actually was in, and that his injuries were serious.

“After the fight I was writhing with pain and wanted to go to the hospital and nothing else; I couldn’t bear the pain anymore,” added Maaz. “As soon as we landed in Karachi, I went directly to the Liaquat National Hospital and got admitted for surgery.”



While physical pain could not hurt the passionate Maaz, the indifferent attitude of the provincial and national authorities did; as he received neither a congratulatory message nor any form of recognition by those in charge of sport in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th,  2016.

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