July 3, 2002	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 21,1423

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LAHORE, July 2: Most of the sports federations of the country remain ready for foreign tours and hold training camps regularly to prepare their teams for it but apparently it seems that there is one federation which has picked its team for the Manchester Commonwealth Games but has no schedule for a training programme.

The Pakistan Badminton Federation (PBF) picked the national champions Wajid Ali and Asma Butt for the Games scheduled to be held from July 25 to Aug 4 after holding trials in Lahore in the third week of June.

But the PBF has failed to hold a training camp which is necessary to hone the skills of both the players.

The attitude of the PBF towards the preparation shows that it considers the tour just a joyride.

Given proper training, the Pakistani players have a good chance of qualifying for the quarterfinals.

In the last Commonwealth Games held in Malaysia, the then national champion Ali Yar Beg entered the quarterfinals while Wajid Ali reached the pre-quarterfinals.

Efforts to contact the PBF secretary Sarfraz Ahmad for his comments went in vain.

It was learnt that the most of the PBF office-bearers are busy in trying to stop the holding of elections of the Punjab Badminton Association which are being held on July 5 under the new sports policy.

Various federations which have a small representation in the Commonwealth Games contingent are running their camps by combining it with the Asian Games preparations.

But the PBF did not consider the camp training as necessary for the international competition.

The Pakistani players are likely to face tough competition from Indian, British, Canadian and Malaysian counterparts.