LAHORE: The Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has completed the online accreditation for the athletes and coaches/officials of athletics, equestrian, shooting, badminton, judo, gymnastics, karate, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling, being the probable who may get qualification/invitation Place from the Olympic Games Tripartite Comm­ission for the Tokyo Olympics.

In a statement, POA secretary Khalid Mahmood said the qualification round of wrestling and taekwondo had been completed but no Pakistani could make a place for the Olympics, despite showing good performance.

Still, he added, the qualifying rounds for judo, gymnastics, karate and badminton are to be held and in case any of them qualifies he would have already been accredited. So far Pakistan has only qualified in athletics, equestrian and shooting.

But the qualifying round for badminton, judo, gymnastics, karate are yet to be held, while no Pakistani could qualify for taekwondo and wrestling, which all qualifying rounds had ended.

Moreover, the secretary said the POA in consultation with the Pakistan Swimming Federation had also requested FINA for the

Universality Place in swimming for one male and female each for Pakistan and awaiting an announcement of FINA by July 1.

In addition, he added, the POA had also completed and submitted accreditation of Dr Fehmida Mirza as a Dignitary of Pakistan being the Minister responsible for sports to the Organ­ising Committee on May 21.

Over the doubts of holding of the Tokyo Olympics in July-August this year due to Covid-19 threat, Khalid said the IOC and Tokyo Olympics Organising Committee are making all-out efforts in ensuring these Games are organised in a safe and secure environment during these difficult times of pandemic all over the world.

Accordingly, Khalid said certain instructions on Covid-19 countermeasures for the participants of all the NOCs including media and dignitaries before travelling to Japan had already been given. NOC Pakistan expeditiously passed on these instructions to all the quarters concerned for their information and compliance.

As confirmed by respective national sports federations and individuals concerned, a maximum number of participants of the Pakistan contingent had already been vaccinated while some were in the process of a second dose which hopefully will be completed by Mid-June.

Games organisers on Friday stated that Olympic delegations from India, Pakistan and four South Asian neighbours will be vaccinated as concern rises over the risks of coronavirus variants spreading at the event.

“The move affects delegations coming from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal,” Tokyo 2020 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said. “The six countries are all subject to Japan’s highest level border restrictions, in part because of concern about the so-called Indian variant of the virus.”

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2021