November 10, 2006	Friday	Shawwal 17, 1427

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KARACHI, Nov 9: By announcing tentative dates for hosting the 30th National Games at Karachi from Feb 11 to 17, Sindh has finally set the ball in motion. However, it faces a challenging task on two counts. Firstly, to stage the mega event in a befitting way requires good organisational skills and secondly, athletes of the host province have to improve upon their performance rather than merely participating.

The biennial games are held in the four provinces on rotation. The last games were held at Quetta (Balochistan) in 2004 and now they have returned to the place of its birth.

After all, it’s Karachi where Father of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, inaugurated the first National Games in April 1948, eight months after Pakistan’s emergence on the world map.

The port city has so far played host to the games on six occasions – 1948, 1970, 1976, 1980, 1988 and 1997.

Sindh could only muster 4-9-18 (gold, silver, bronze) medals in the last games held at Quetta to secure overall sixth position on the medal table. The supremacy of Army remained intact as they retained the Quaid-i-Azam trophy. Their tally of medals – 95-92-40 speak volumes of the hard work their athletes have put in.

Sindh’s best performance came in the 22nd National Games, also held at Karachi in 1988, where it was placed third among 11 participating units.

Again, it was in the 25th National Games held at Quetta that Sindh attained fourth place with a harvest of 15-12-20 medals.

The decline in Sindh’s graph is quite evident but sorrowfully no soul was moved over the dismal performance.

Apart from National Games, Sindh twice finished below NWFP in the first and second Inter-provincial games. Sindh amassed 1075 points from 6-18-27 medals to finish behind Punjab and NWFP in the first games held at Lahore in 2004. NWFP’s earned 1125 points from 11-16-24 medals. Even the gold medal tally of Balochistan was higher then Sindh (10-17-21) but they finished at the bottom for securing less points (875).

In the recently concluded second edition, also held at Lahore, NWFP again asserted its superiority to finish runners up behind Punjab. Sindh as usual finished third among four teams.

The last National Games held in the city almost a decade back have witnessed lack of planning and coordination among various agencies entrusted to handle the issue.

One has failed to understand that a number of officials who frequently travel abroad with teams in Olympics, Asian, Commonwealth and South Asian Games did not learn how to manage big events at home.

With some exceptions, the provincial associations have no programme to run their activities for 365 days and they only look forward for ‘grants’. Whenever need arise, they raise a team and despatch it to be among those who also ran.

Same is the case with the Sindh Olympic Association (SOA) which has failed to deliver over a period of years. The officials are more interested in occupying offices rather then chalking out ways and means for the improvement of overall standard.

Sindh Sports Minister, Qamar Mansoor, plans to revise and restore annual grants of sports bodies. But it is advisable that before doing so he should set targets for them for lifting the graph of sports.