Pakistan’s Asiad contingent to comprise 250 male, 48 female athletes

KARACHI: The sports governing bodies of Pakistan on Wednesday decided after long deliberation at Lahore that Pakistan contingent for Asian Games would comprise around 400 players and officials.

Pakistan will feature in 36 disciplines in Asian Games slated to be held in Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang from August 18 to September 2.

It was decided at a joint meeting of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA), Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and national federations at the Olympic House in the Punjab capital. It was agreed that the country would feature in the Asiad in 28 those disciplines whose federations are affiliated with the POA and eight those whose federations are not affiliated.

It was also decided that the PSB would sponsor 300 participants. The remaining 97 would go to the event on self finance basis.The players and officials of eight non-affiliated disciplines will sponsor themselves, it was also clarified.

The contingent comprises 250 male and 48 female and 99 officials (both men and women).These details were provided by the POA after the meeting. Azam Dar, a senior PSB official, attended the meeting. The federations briefed the house about their players’ prospects in the quadrennial competitions.

The POA said that Pakistan would take part in athletics, archery, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, bridge, equestrian, fencing, football, golf, gymnastics, handball, hockey, ju-Jitsu, kabaddi, karate, kurash, paragliding, pencak silat, rowing, rugby, sailing, sepaktakraw, shooting, soft tennis, sport climbing, squash, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and wushu.

The case of judo and cycling will be decided by the POA Executive Committee. A couple of meetings among the stakeholders had already been held on the issue.In the previous meeting held at Islamabad on June 6 it was decided that the camps would be held on June 20 at Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

It is pertinent to mention here that the PSB had held the camp of some disciplines but had to halt them on May 15 due to funding issues. These are the shortest camp in the history of Asian Games preparations. Only football and hockey players have been preparing in a systematic way.

There are chances that in some disciplines the Board will sponsor athletes for training on foreign soil. In the previous Asian Games held in the Korean city of Incheon in 2014 Pakistan claimed silver medals in boxing, judo and hockey and bronze in wushu and kabaddi.