EDITORIAL: Pakistan has accepted a formidable challenge by assuming the responsibility to stage the Eighth Asian Games in Islamabad four years from now when even a country like India backed out. … It is therefore in the fitness of things to … start the preparations in right earnest. … Evidently the problem needs to be tackled on three main counts, namely, financial, physical and organisational. As behoves a self-respecting nation stress has been laid on self-reliance. An immediate target of Rs 10 million has been set and passed on … to a body of leading bankers… . …

Apart from the organisational challenge that Pakistan will have to encounter as the host, its performance on the ground will also be subjected to a severe test. Iran’s infinitely improved record during the Teheran Games has … underlined the long distance our sporting talent will have to cover. Even otherwise our dismal showing … has emphasised the need for a leap forward. Besides hockey … our quest for a gold medal was largely a wild goose chase. With an impressive contingent, numerically speaking (160 participants and officials) the outcome was … disappointing.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2024