September 6, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 8, 1424

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PESHAWAR, Sept 5: Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF) has asked the government to build all-weather swimming pools in four provinces to hunt for new talent.

Talking to Dawn on Friday, the federation’s secretary general Kamran Butt, said that there was abundant talent in the country, but due to unavailability of swimming pools and lack of official patronage, the deserving swimmers could not be groomed into world class competitors.

Swimming and athletics are two basic and mandatory games in Olympics, Commonwealth, Asian and SAF games, said Mr Butt, adding that Pakistani swimmer, Kamal Salman Masood, alone had bagged three gold medals out of the total 10, Pakistan won, in the 9th SAF Games held in Kathmandu, Nepal.

A male and female swimmer have already qualified forthe Summer Olympic Games to be held in Athens next year.

Lack of official patronage can be gauged from the fact that 11the National Swimming Championship, that was due in 2000, is now taking place in 2003, owing to the slow-paced renovation work at the swimming pool at Qayyum Stadium, Peshawar which took three years.

As a rules, every province had to hold the junior-level national competition once after four years.

Only change of tiles in the swimming pool took three years and that too on the regular persuasion of the PSF and chairman NWFP Olympic Committee, Syed Aqil Shah.

According to Kamran, except two pools in Islamabad, the rest are only for summer season and the swimmers can practice for 6-7 months in an year.

“We need temperature controlled swimming pools, where the swimmers could continue their practice for the whole year. The building and running cost of the all-weather pools is more but not impossible for the government”, declared Kamran.

The swimming pools required to be maintained at 26 degree Celsius, where the swimmers should be allowed to for daily practice of at least 3-4 hours in the evening. Young swimmers also need scholarships or stipends to enable them to buy kits. Likewise, they need coaches so they could be guided technically.

The PSF official informed that the regional associations had to pay Rs 5,000 for three hours to the swimming pools’ owners in Lahore and Karachi for regional competitions. Nevertheless, the pools aren’t of international standard.

He suggested that the government should invite philanthropists to built swimming pools on lease basis, like India to promote the game.

Unfortunately, there is no facility for swimmers in Quetta, which recently prompted the Pakistan Olympic Association to link holding of competitions there with the development of infrastructure.

However he said that lately 5-6 sites had been selected in Lahore where pools would be built on BOT basis, which could boost the game.

About the potential, he said that Pakistan ranked second after Bangladesh in the 2001 SAF Games in Lahore. He said that young players are coming to the field of swimming which is evident from the fact that competitions for under-8 and 10 years take place in Karachi and Lahore.