KARACHI: Pakistan have been placed in Pool A of qualifying rounds of Rio Olympics 2016 along with India, Australia, England and Belgium. Pool B comprises New Zealand, South Korea, Holland, Argentine, Spain and Germany. The qualifying rounds are scheduled to be held in Belgium from June 25 to July 5. These 10 teams will be joined by China, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, France, Austria, Ireland, Canada and Egypt who have got through the pre-qualifying rounds held in Singapore, San Diego (US), and Cape Town (South Africa). Pakistan players have started training at Naseer Bunda Hockey Stadium in Islamabad for the qualifying rounds. Chief coach Shahnaz Sheikh said that two sessions were held on Tuesday. He added that after each three days of training, players would have a rest day, he told ‘The News’ over phone from Islamabad. He said that three players were participating professional leagues abroad and were yet to report. Irfan is playing in Britain, while Rizwan and Rashid are playing in Holland. “We are providing the best available facilities to the players for training,” Shahnaz said. “Our only shortcoming is the lack of international matches experience against major teams, but PHF is still trying to arrange maximum number of matches before the qualifying rounds and hopefully there will soon be positive news in this regard,” Shahnaz said. Meanwhile, it has been learnt that Omar Associates will organise a ceremony in the honour of the national hockey team and its officials on March 22 in Karachi for winning silver medals in two major tournaments last year. The national hockey team will reach Karachi on March 22 for the ceremony and leave the city on the very next day, sources said. The sources said that significant cash awards would be given to the players for winning silver medals at Asian Games and Champions Trophy. Omar Associates bore the expenditure for sending the team to India to participate in the Champions Trophy 2014 as PHF had been facing huge financial crisis.
