November 12, 2006	Sunday	Shawwal 19, 1427

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LAHORE, Nov 11: Pakistan will field a contingent of 204 athletes and officials for 22 different disciplines, in the 15th Asian Games to be held in Doha, Qatar from Dec 1 to 15.

Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) president Lt.-Gen (retd) Syed Arif Hasan said on Saturday after an executive committee meeting, that he is unable to predict the tally of medals expected to be won in the games.

"No one can predict about the medals tally in any games but we can only hope for a better performance," he said.

Surprisingly, the POA president was unaware about the amount of the budget which is being spent on the preparations of the contingent.

"I am not in a position to disclose to the press the exact budget allocated for the Asian Games, but I can tell you people that Pakistan Sports Trust (PST) has chipped in Rs 20 million for the preparations, and I don't know what the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) has spent," Arif said.

Arif has established a new department as PST and raised hefty funds to spend on the promotion of the sports.

He said the PSB had been organising the tours of different teams and holding training camps as part of the preparations for the games, therefore, he was unaware about their plans and budget.

Pakistan will compete in athletics, bodybuilding, boxing, Cue-sport, cycling, football, golf, gymnastic, hockey, judo, kabaddi, karate, rowing, sailing, shooting, squash, swimming, tennis, taekwondo, weightlifting, wrestling and wushu.

He said 144 male and only five female athletes were included in the contingent. There are 46 team officials and nine contingent officials. He said urine samples of various athletes had been sent for doping test and the results were expected to be received next week.

POA president explained that the two Pakistani boxers, facing allegations of having tested positive in the last South Asian Games in Sri Lanka, would go to Sri Lanka for an inquiry. However, he said the names of the boxers had been included in the boxing team, taking part in the Asian Games.

Arif added that with the exception of hockey and football, all the other national sports federations had included women in their executive body on the instructions of the POA.

To a question, he said POA had accepted the controversial elections of the Pakistan Bodybuilding Federation.

'If anything wrong has happened while conducting the elections of the bodybuilding federation the aggrieved party should lodge an appeal to us," he said.

The POA nominated a three-member committee headed by Abdul Khaliq Khan to conduct elections this year in which the representative of the three provinces Sindh, Punjab and NWFP boycotted against the unconstitutional procedure adopted to hold the elections. But even then the committee conducted the elections and announced the office-bearers electing Yahya, a close friend of Arif, as president.

Sindh sports minister Qamar Mansoor, who also attended the press conference, highlighted the arrangements the province is making to host the National Games in Karachi from Feb 11 to 17.

Qamar said arrangements for 3800 athletes and officials from all the four provinces and departments were being made to host the games in a befitting manner.

"We will follow the plan of Balochistan Olympic Association which they adopted to hold the last mega event," he said.

The minister claimed the Sindh government would spent Rs 50 million to organise the games.Besides it, he said millions of rupees were being spent to improve the infrastructure for the games.