Swimming in troubled waters

Karachi club comes first, KGS second and Habib Public third.

KARACHI: As the Karachi Club team proudly stepped up to receive the first prize at the 50th Sindh Open Swimming Championships on Sunday, the Karachi Grammar School team, which came in second, and the Habib Public School team, which came in third, also held their heads up high as they acknowledged that the competition had been tough.

Saad Amin from the Karachi Club won gold medals in the 50-metre and 100-metre butterfly stroke as well as the 50-metre and 100-metre freestyle. He also won a silver medal in the 200-metre medley. Meanwhile, Bilal Kasim from the Bayview Academy won gold in the under-14 category while Aniq Anwar from the DA Public School won gold in the under-16 category. Mazhar Naqvi, also from the Karachi club, won the open championship round while Aniq Anwar, Mazhar Naqvi from the Karachi Club and Suleman Saabat from the Habib Public School were commended for their record-breaking performances.

Although a battle for the first spot was all that mattered to the private clubs and schools participating in the swimming championships, which started on October 17 and ended on October 24, the sport became a subject of a heated debate among the fans and enthusiasts who believe that in Pakistan, swimming has been underrated for decades.

The Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF) was affiliated with the Federation Internationale de Natation (Fina) back in 1948. Despite a history of pursuing the sport since as early as a year after independence, swimming has yet to receive the acclaim it deserves, fans of the sport told The Express Tribune.

“Swimming is a low-priority sport in the country. It requires proper infrastructure, such as swimming pools that have been constructed on the basis of international standards, so that swimmers can train and practice properly,” said PSF president Kamran Lashari.

PSF has produced excellent swimmers who have represented the country at the Olympics and other international championships. The federation still has a team of swimmers who have won medals in several championships across the country and can represent Pakistan at the international level. Despite the potential, swimming is one of the most neglected sports in Pakistan due to a lack of support by the government and sponsors.

In Lashari’s opinion, swimming is not popular in Pakistan also because it cannot be accessed by the majority of the country’s population.

“Here, in our country, only the very privileged schools and clubs have swimming pools, which is why not even one per cent of the people swim,” added Lashari.

The sport is limited to a few individuals as there aren’t more than five 50-metre-long swimming pools in the country and even they are not equipped with a temperature-control system so that they can be used around the year, he said.

Moreover, the facility is so expensive that ordinary people cannot afford it even if they have the will to pursue swimming. Lashari said that some schools and colleges must be given grants to construct swimming pools while those educational institutes who demand higher fees from their students should be compelled to provide a swimming pool.

Kiran Khan, who has represented Pakistan in several international swimming meets, including the 2008 summer Olympics and the 9th Fina SC swimming championship in Manchester, UK, said that she was neither given proper coverage by the media nor appreciation by the government.

“We put in a lot of effort to win medals in international meets. Sometimes we also have to leave our education and family for training, but our media and government pays no attention to our achievements,” said Khan.

Some swimmers said that they faced many difficulties in pursuing the sport due to a lack of facilities.

“We can’t secure positions anywhere outside the country because we don’t have many swimmers. There are at least 40 to 45 heats in one swimming event abroad while in Pakistan we barely organise two heats,” said Abbas Ali from the Karachi University who represents HEC in the national games.

“We represent Sindh in the national-level competitions but we don’t have a swimming pool at our university to train and practice”, he said while complaining of a lack of infrastructure for swimmers.

According to Ali, swimmers who wish to pursue the sport but are unable to meet the financial requirements get no sponsorship, which is why they are unable to pay for coaching and training and are therefore incapable of taking the sport further.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2010.