Shooting remains neglected in civil, national awards

KARACHI: Shooters have been ignored by the authorities that confer civil or national awards on sportsmen although shooting is the only sport whose athletes have been regularly getting entries into top world events.

Athletes are honoured with Hilal-i-Imtiaz, Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pride of Performance, Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, and Tamgha-i-Quaid-i-Azam for their performances.

“I would not like to point finger at the conferring of national or civil awards to athletes of other sports since everybody knows how they are awarded on various considerations,” said an official of National Rifle Association of Pakistan.

It is pertinent to mention here that 219 awards have been conferred on athletes of 27 sports: athletics (12 awards), ballooning (1), bridge (3), boxing (10), cricket (29), football (8), golf (2), hockey (60), jockey (1), kabaddi (2), karate (3), mountaineering (21), polo (3), rowing (1), sailing/yachting (7), ski (1), hiking (1), snooker (4), squash (15), swimming (3), table tennis (2), taekwondo (1), tennis (9), ultralight aircraft pilot sports (1), weightlifting (2), and wrestling (11).