Pakistan can qualify for Youth Olympics: Shafiq­

KARACHI: Pakistan Handball Federation’s (PHF) president Mohammad Shafiq on Friday said that Pakistan’s youth had the potential to qualify for the beach handball event of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games to be held in Buenos Aires in Argentina.
“Yes, we have great talent and I hope we will be able to qualify for the Argentina event,” Shafiq told ‘The News’ from Faisalabad.
Pakistan will have to play the Asian Youth Handball Championship to be held from August 5-12, 2016, which serves as qualifiers for the Youth Olympic Games.
The top three sides of the affair will move into the Youth Olympic Games.
“The host country for the continental event is yet to be decided. The Asian Handball Federation (AHF) has invited bids for the purpose. We are not going to bid because of the security situation in Pakistan,” said Shafiq, also the secretary of AHF.
Pakistan will hold a camp for the Youth Olympic Games qualifiers at Faisalabad from September 1.
“We are going to invite 16 players to the camp. And then the final ten will be picked for the continental competitions,” Shafiq said.
Pakistan’s handball teams’ camps are in operation at the Pakistan Sports Complex in Islamabad to prepare for the South Asian Games which are expected to be held in India in January.
“Thirty men and 20 women are training for SAG. But we have not yet been given a hall and our players are training in the open,” Shafiq said.
“The Liaquat gymnasium is being renovated. But we are hopeful we will be given the facility,” Shafiq said.
This is the first time that there will be a female handball event in the SAG.
“Men’s handball made its debut in the previous edition in Dhaka in 2010,” Shafiq said.
“Our female players are good and I hope they will come in top three in the South Asian Games,” Shafiq hoped.
In the male handball event, Pakistan won gold medal in 2010.
Shafiq said that Pakistan’s male team would be sent for one-month training to Tehran just ahead of the South Asian Games.
“We also plan to invite Iran’s female team to Pakistan and play friendlies with them,” the official said.
But interestingly India is yet to officially announce the dates of the SAG.
The South Asian Olympic Council (SAOC) has already proposed January 10-20 as dates for SAG. The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has forwarded the summary to the government but it is yet to respond which has created a lot of uncertainty about the SAG. The events for the affair are also yet not finalised.