LAHORE: All the formalities of 12 athletes who qualified for the Olym­pic Scholarships for Athletes Paris-2024 Individual have been completed and they will receive the first amount of their annual scholarship next week, the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) announced on Thursday.

“We are delighted to inform you that the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has completed all the formalities and the athletes have signed the contracts for Olympic Scholarships for Athletes - Paris 2024 – Individual,” the POA said in a media statement on Thursday.

The athletes who have secured $625 per month scholarship from Jan­uary 2022 to August 2024 include Arshad Nadeem (athletics), Mahoor Shahzad (badminton), Usman Chand, Gulfam Joseph, Anna Ibtisam, Kish­mala Talat, Rasam Gull (all shooting), Jehanara Nabi (swimming), Perniya Zaman Khan (table tennis), Mohammad Nooh Dastgir Butt (weightlifting), Mohammad Bilal and Mohammad Inam (wrestling).

“It is expected that the first tranche of $2500 [with arrears from Jan 2022 till to date] to each scholarship holder will be issued in coming weeks. The beneficiary athletes and their National Sports Federations or in certain cases their departments have been advised to devise programmes to enable these athletes’ training and participation in international arenas including Olympic Qualification Programmes,” the POA statement added.

“The POA will frequently meet athletes and their National Sports Federations to evaluate the utilisation of the Scholarship; in particular POA president retired Lt Gen Syed Arif Hasan has stressed that an appropriate amount may be decided mutually that shall be accepted as the Pocket Money for the individual athletes subsiding the economic impact upon athletes’ personal lives.

“The POA will continue to provide details of the grant releases and programmes to the National Media frequently for the encouragement of the athletes,” the statement concluded.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2022