Pakistan sports remains a hot topic of discussion among the stakeholders. The topic becomes intense after every Olympics or world games, because the 5th most populous country, with a population of 341.49 million inhabitants fails to make a significant impact at the scene of global sports.

Since its inception Pakistan has claimed only 11 Olympic medals. Thanks mainly to field hockey which managed eight out of eleven medals during its golden ages.

In Asian Games, this tally is 206 to date, while Pakistan managed to secure 82 medals in the Commonwealth games. Besides hockey, Pakistan won most of its medals in wrestling, athletics, weightlifting, boxing, sailing, and squash.

Sports enthusiasts were overjoyed when Imran Khan Niazi a former Cricketer and the skipper of the team became the 19th Prime Minister of Pakistan in August 2018.

The stakeholders were brimming with hope that a new era of sports will be unleashed under his leadership.

Unfortunately no tangible steps were taken to salvage national pride in the field of international sports during that era.

Departmental cricket, in particular and other sports in general remained nowhere during that period.

The present government under Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif lifted the ban on departmental sports and a new DG PSB was also appointed to streamline the impending sports issues.

To the good luck of national sports, Arshad Nadeem won the gold medal in Paris Olympics 2024, which proved as a catalyst to propel the sports as one of the priority in the national policies.

The all-important National Sports Conference was held in Islamabad in May last year and a national sports task force was formed to look into the affairs of national sports on priority. Nadeem Irshad Kayani, Secretary Ministry of IPC, and Muhammad Yasir Pirzada DG PSB, made all their efforts for bringing all stakeholders on one page and charting out a pathway to revive sports in the country within the limited resources.

During the national sports conference and the brainstorming sessions held by the sports task force the concept of “High Performance Centres” was very much appreciated, to incubate the champion elite athletes on fast track, so that Pakistan can regain its lost pride in international sports.

Under the supervision of Ahsan Iqbal the minister of planning and deputy chairman of the Planning Commission the Central Development Working Party(CDWP) recently approved nine projects worth 27.40 billion rupees, including the establishment of a long awaited sports academy, to be named as Arshad Nadeem/ Shehbaz Sharif High Performance Sports Academy (HPA), at the Islamabad Sports Complex.

The HPA will function as a residential sports academy to provide athletes with a focused and conducive environment for their training and development.

Besides that the existing sports infrastructure of Jinnah Stadium, Liaqat Gymnasium, Swimming Pool Complex, Naseer Bunda Hockey Stadium, Rodham Hall and Roshan Khan Squash Complex will be improved.

Thus provision of both formal and sports educational opportunities has been kept in mind to enhance the capacity of athletes to undertake a dual career path, so that they can overcome the financial and social challenges outside and beyond sports careers.

A long term athletic development programme (LTAD) has also been aligned in the academy programmes.

Remember that programming in athletic development is not a linear task; it is an evolving, dynamic process that requires keen understanding of the multifaceted interplay between various components. The player development team in such a project must be highly professional with requisite credentials, competence, and commitment to undertake the long term program.

The path to peak performance is laden with complexity, but it’s this very complexity that makes the journey rewarding and indeed, essential to the pursuit of athletic excellence.

The central goal of any athletic training programme is to elevate or evolve an individual’s biological capacity.

Unlike everyday physical development, targeted training propels an athlete beyond what daily life alone achieves.

Therefore, the careful integration of enhanced physiological understanding with training stimuli becomes a decisive factor in shaping an athlete’s career.

Keeping in view our limited financial and human resources, the initiative of establishing Arshad Nadeem/ Shahbaz Sharif High Performance Academy is a fresh breeze in the sand dunes of Pakistan Sports. I am sure that if the project is executed with the purpose of sincerity and honesty and clarity of objectives, with

the help of true professionals, it can surely help in alleviating the standards of elite sports to a great extent.

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