The men’s discus gold for parathlete HaiderAli paralleled the story of Olympic javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem. Both throwing events from a staple of athletics, but are not normally associated with Pakistan. Both athletes achieved what they did by training personally, without much assistance from the government, or even the associations which oversee their sport. The only positive to emerge from their stories is that there is talent aplenty in the country, and it is only a matter of reaching out to talented individuals and providing them the requisite assistance.
However, that assistance must be professional. The concept of the gifted amateur is over. The idea of putting someone in charge of a sport just because he once practised it is hopelessly outdated, though perhaps it seems an improvement from the way Pakistan manages its own sports, where ‘organisers’ took charge of a sport after having something to do with its organisation, usually at the club or district level. A symptom of this is the recent appointment of Mr Rameez Raja as PCB Chairman, merely because he had captained Pakistan close to 30 years ago. It is not surprising that Prime Minister Imran Khan should make this appointment, for though practitioners of every sport, not just cricket, expected a former World Cup-winning cricket captain to be more effective in promoting sports, for the sports organisers of his era were ‘gifted amateurs.’
Sports, of all kinds, needs professionals with proven aptitude to provide it the kind of guidance it needs, and to ensure that there is bang for the buck, that sports budgets are wisely spent. But most of all, sports facilities and opportunities must be provided on a large scale, so that young people (of whom the country has an abundance) enjoy themselves. If done properly, athletes will emerge, and medals will be won, and the country’s image enhanced accordingly. Pakistan will not have to depend on its parathletes for medals, though it is to be presumed that in that era too, specially abled people will go on doing the nation proud.
