Faiqa finishes 6th, betters own mark

PARIS:

Pakistan’s Faiqa Riaz made the country proud with her head covered and held high as she posted 12.49 seconds in the women’s 100m preliminary heat at the Stade de France on Friday morning.

The Lahore-based sprinter, who began her sports career as a hockey player and then competed in long-jump, had vowed before her event that she would give her all.

Unlike Arshad Nadeem, who is a star and has a qualified coach to assist in Salman Butt, Faiqa has been without her coach who could have helped her perform better.

“I am here without my coach Fiaz Ahmed. I am here today because of him,” said Faiqa while speaking to The Express Tribune.

“Before coming to Paris people were taking my interviews and saying all sorts of things. But there was also a time when I trained alone on my own with online coaching from my coach,” Faiqa told this correspondent.

“No one would even consider my presence. But today I am here at the Olympics. I can’t believe I am sharing a platform with so many of my heroes,” said the young athlete.

Faiqa had refused to give her target time before the event as well. “I have this time in my mind, I won’t spell it out, I’ll just run on the day and see,” said Faiqa before the event..

“My coach also has a target in his mind. And we’ll compare then. But I will give my all. I run with everything I have got, every fibre of my being.”

Faiqa’s Heat 2 in the preliminaries had nine athletes.

The women who topped the heat was Vietnam’s Tran who posted 11.81, which also happened to be Pakistan’s national record statistic in the women’s 100m event which was clocked by Naseem Hameed in 2010 at the South Asian Games and before that by Sadaf Siddiqui in 2008.

Faiqa was competing at the Games on universality quota and her participation was largely made possible, courtesy Pakistan Olympic Association (POA).

It may be mentioned here that the Athletics Federation of Pakistan has been suspended by POA after several athletes tested positive for doping and Pakistan had to return the medals won at South Asian Games in 2019.

The biggest impediment that Pakistani sprinters face is the switch from hand-watch at home to electronic time recorders at international events.

“Well, in Pakistan there is still a person who uses a stop watch to record our times at the events. But in the international events it’s all very advanced and every movement is timed,” said Faiqa.

Grenada’s H Hazzard finished second with Chinese Taipei’s By Zhang and Guam’s R Tugade qualifying from the heat.

The top three from each of the four heats automatically qualified for round 1 followed by the next five fastest athletes.

Overall, the cut-off after the premilinary heat was 12.02 registered by Tugade.

Meanwhile, Congo’s Natacha Ngoye topped the preliminaries with 11.34 seconds leading the pack of 17 qualified sprinters by the end of the preliminaries.

Faiqa had claimed the title of Pakistan’s fastest woman after winning the 100m race at the last National Championships in 2023.

Faiqa also lamented the lack of support from the government and sports authorities, stating that neither the Punjab nor federal government has provided adequate assistance to athletes representing Pakistan in the Olympics.