"We only train for the event just two days before its commencement and we are paid less than Rs500 per day," Participant Shahbaz Ahmed. PHOTO: FILE/APP
The participants of the National Youth and Junior Athletics Championship – which is scheduled to get underway in Islamabad on Tuesday – feel that the scope for a Pakistani athlete in the Olympics discipline is limited and that the sport is dying in the country.
The event will be held under the auspices of the newly elected Athletic Federation of Pakistan (AFP), the body’s first event of their tenure. However, athletes from Sindh and Wapda said that similar competitions must be organised regularly in order to groom the athletes.
Sindh athlete Shahbaz Ahmed opined that the least a federation could do is to organise two national competitions every year to reverse the decline in the popularity of athletics.
“We know we will not go any further because even the best national record in Pakistan is the worst in international competitions,” Ahmed told The Express Tribune. “We really need more competitions. This is the first time I am competing in a national championship and I hope to outperform other athletes from Wapda and Army. But the department teams are better-off than provincial ones as they get proper facilities, proper diets and salaries to pursue a career in athletics. On the other hand, being in the provincial squads means we only train for the event just two days before its commencement and we are paid less than Rs 500 per day.”
Meanwhile, according to AFP secretary Muhammad Zafar, this time the youth championship will be opportunistic for the athletes as the best talent will be chosen for further training abroad and the squad for the South Asian Games that are scheduled to take place in March in India this year.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 27th, 2013.
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