The four medals — three silver and a bronze — that Pakistan won at the 20th Glasgow Commonwealth Games despite the ugly on-going row between warring factions of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) is a testimony that our athletes have abundant talent and only need government patronage to scale new heights.

Though gold medals eluded Pakistan and they finished with fewer medals as compared to the last games held at Delhi, it helped the nation finish 23rd on the final medals table besides providing a breath of fresh air to the 180 million Pakistanis amid political commotion at home.

Pakistan had scooped two gold medals, a silver and two bronze at Delhi four years back to finish 17th among medal winning nations.

Those who did Pakistan proud at the Glasgow Games are judoka Shah Hussain Shah, grappler Qamar Abbas (74kg freestyle wrestling), pugilist Mohammad Waseem (52kg) — silver — and grappler Azhar Hussain (57kg freestyle wrestling) — bronze.

Shah Hussain is the son of 1988 Seoul Olympic bronze medallist boxer Syed Hussain Shah who has settled in Japan long time ago. He has trained his son in martial arts (judo) which has a large following in Japan.

Pakistan made its debut in the Commonwealth Games at Vancouver, Canada, in 1954, 24-years later after its formal institution at Hamilton, Canada, in 1930. Pakistan left it in 1972 and returned to the fold at Auckland in 1990.

To date, Pakistan has fetched 69 medals in Commonwealth Games — (24-24-21) including the Glasgow Games.

Pakistan sports has suffered a lot during the last two years and a half, to be precise after Lt Gen Syed Arif Hasan sweeps to victory in the POA elections for the third time in succession on Feb 4, 2012.

The elections that were held for the first time in the history of the institution, founded in 1948, was supervised by the representatives of International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) instead of a unanimous panel.

However, Arif’s rival panel headed by retired Major Gen Akram Sahi, continue to flout IOC charter in connivance with the government that created a chaos among national federations and their tiers.

To cut the long story short, a better sense prevailed when the government took a U-turn by withdrawing its support to Sahi and restored the original body without whose support it was difficult to send the contingent to Glasgow Games.

It was sheer hard work of athletes who won medals at the recently concluded games. A timely reward by the government to medal recipients will infuse new spirit among them for future commitments.

The Incheon Asian Games are round the corner and takes place from Sept 19 to Oct 4 in the South Korean port city. It is expected that Pakistani sportspersons will come out with flying colours again.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2014