July 06, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 9, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 5: The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) is paying Rs9.9 million annually in salaries to foreign coaches it has hired, a top official said on Wednesday.

Col (Retd) Salahuddin, the newly-appointed Director General of PSB told a press conference that there were 16 foreigners training the national athletes in 12 disciplines.

Pakistan are preparing for next month's 10th South Asian Games in Colombo and their reliance mainly is on coaches from China with the events of shooting, swimming, wushu and table tennis benefiting from their services.

There are also coaches from Cuba, Canada, Iran, Austria and Bulgaria all of whom have been imparting training for varying lengths of time.

At the Aug 18-27 Games, Pakistan will be taking part in 19 disciplines that also includes hockey and wushu. "We will be sending approximately 386-strong contingent including 12 officials," Salahuddin said.

The sports administrators have already dispatched the "entry-by-numbers" for the Games while "entry-by-names" is to be sent shortly, before the July 10 deadline.

Most of the training camps for the regional event have been running since last year with as many as 14 at the Pakistan Sports Complex here, two in Karachi, one each in Rawalpindi, Lahore and the Naval Complex in Islamabad.

As part of preparations for the Games, Salahuddin said that various teams were being provided opportunity for international exposure with judo, shooting, weightlifting, karate, wrestling, wushu and table tennis squads the beneficiaries.

Besides this, the athletics, badminton, boxing, cycling, football, volleyball, swimming, table tennis, squash, kabaddi, and taekwondo teams have taken part in different competitions abroad.

Salahuddin hoped that the Pakistani athletes will be able to improve their medals tally of the last Games held in Islamabad.

Foreign coaches in Pakistan: Reinaldo Alvarez Ulacia (Cuba/boxing), Otakar Dolezel (Canada/cycling), Chen Shiping and Feng Shi (China/shooting), Liu Jiyun and Li Guosheng (China/swimming), Gholamreza Moazen (Iran/wrestling), Mohammad Keyhan (Iran/judo), Ahmad Safi (Iran/karate), Nam In Mo and Ahn Moon Jae (Korea/taekwondo), Li Junfeng and Li Tao (China/wushu), Tariq Farooq (Austria/badminton), Zhou Bingquan (China/table tennis), Strahil Pantchev Balov (Bulgaria/volleyball).