Know your Olympians: Haseeb, Bisma eye swimming medals for Pakistan in Tokyo

“As glamourous as it looks, we didn’t get to see much as we were lined-up to walk,” Haseeb shares his experience of enjoying the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with The Express Tribune, as he lived his childhood dream that he nurtured from age 8. “It was interesting. But we were all inside at first to march, but it was a great experience.”

Pakistan have sent 19 swimmers in Olympics history from the 1948 Summer Games in London. Syed Muhammad Haseeb Tariq and Bisma Khan are the additions, taking that count to 21 in the Olympics happening in Tokyo.

They were a part of the few athletes from the contingent to walk the opening ceremony parade for Pakistan at the Olympics.

Must one go back to Olympic history, swimming has been the sport that Pakistan took to easily as they represented the highest number of swimmers in 1948 Games, from the four that began the history of aquatics for the newly-made country then, to Haseeb and Bisma in 2020 Olympics, the road has been long.

Haseeb and Bisma will represent the country on universality invitation from the world swimming body FINA. Through this invitation, a country can send top two athletes, one male and one female for the individual events based on the FINA Points System of June 28, 2021.

For Haseeb, the aim is to improve on his personal best that is 53.34 seconds, which is also the national record in the men’s 100m freestyle event.

The 25 year-old is confident that he will do his best in Tokyo.

“Olympics are the highest possible event for any athlete to compete in and I am happy to be a part of this. I feel grateful for it,” Haseeb told The Express Tribune. “I had this dream since I saw the Athens Olympics. I have been swimming since I was six years, but when I saw Athens Olympics, it became a dream.”

To reach to the dream, Haseeb began taking swimming seriously and went on to training for competitive events at the age of 15. So far it has been 10 years that he has put his efforts to make sure he makes the cut for the Games.

“I started 10 years ago, competitively swimming and training and achieving this goal. It was 2013 that I properly went into competitions,” said Haseeb who created the national record for 100m freestyle event in 2019 at the World Championships in Korea. He also proved his mettle at the national level as he holds the best records in 50m men’s freestyle (that he made in 2016 at the South Asian Games) and 200m freestyle (created in 2019 at the National Games). Haseeb also holds four more individual national records including three in breaststroke (50m, 100m and 200m), whereas one in butterfly 50m.

Swimming is also not the most accessible of the sports for the aspiring athletes in Pakistan as there is a dearth of pools and facilities that can be of quality and international standard.

The 25-year-old is aware of the conditions that are not met for the swimmers, however, he is based in Canada, where he also graduated from York University, and he is an athlete for North York Aquatic Club along with actively being a swimmer for his varsity.

“In Pakistan there is a lack of facilities. They don’t even have swimming blocks or qualified coaches to begin with. We are lagging years behind from international swimming standards and community,” said Haseeb, as swimming sees many drawbacks in a country which sees water-shortage, even in urban areas like Karachi. Meanwhile, in other parts of the country the local swimmers come from humble backgrounds that have grown up swimming in natural water bodies mainly.

Among Haseeb’s heroes are Michael Phelps, but he emphasised on US swimmer Caeleb Dressel who has been the world champion in 2017 and again in 2019.

“Michael Phelpls is an all-time favourite, he is everyone’s hero. But my current favourite is Caeleb Dressel. I really look up to him because he has been undefeated and especially the way he steps up at the big events, steps up in the moments that matters the most,” said Haseeb as he and Pakistan’s other swimmer Bisma continue to train in Tokyo while staying in the Olympic Village.

On the other hand, Bisma comes from a family of swimmers with her elder sister Kiran being one of the most celebrated athletes in the country.

Bisma represents Wapda in the domestic events, while she holds her personal and national best in 50m freestyle, where she clocked 27.90 seconds at the 2018 National Women’s Championship. She represented the country at the World Championships in 2019 and managed to clocked 28.05 seconds.

On the national level, she holds four more records that include 50m and 100m breaststroke records, along with 50m and 100m butterfly records.

Haseeb will have the most important competition of his life on July 27 in men’s 100m where he will be up against the top athletes in the world including his favourite, Dressel, while Bisma will compete in her event on July 30.