Pakistan likely to feature in 10 disciplines in CWG

KARACHI: Pakistan would feature in ten disciplines in the Commonwealth Games slated to be held at Gold Coast, Australia, if the hockey team qualified for the competitions, a senior official of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) told ‘The News’ on Monday.

“Hockey is subject to qualification. We are in contact with the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) but it has not yet informed us about its qualification status. If the hockey team qualifies, Pakistan will participate in ten disciplines,” the POA secretary Khalid Mehmood told ‘The News’.

The other disciplines are athletics, badminton, boxing, swimming, shooting, squash, table tennis, wrestling and weightlifting.

“Without hockey the strength of the athletes will be around 40 and with hockey it will go up to around 58. If officials are also added, with hockey, the contingent strength will be over 90,” the official said.

Khalid said that the POA had already held meetings with the federations and would hold meetings with them in future too to discuss various things about the Games to be held from April 4-15.

Judo is not part of the competitions. Wrestling seems to be the only discipline this time in which Pakistan can win medals. Pakistan finished with three silver medals and a bronze in Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014: silver in judo through Japan-based Shah Hussain in -100 kg competitions; silver in boxing flyweight through Mohammad Waseem; silver in 74kg freestyle wrestling through Qamar Abbas; and bronze in 57kg freestyle wrestling through Azhar Hussain.