MANCHESTER, July 29: Twelve-year-old Kiran Khan will swim at the Commonwealth Games this week as Pakistan’s female swimmers emerge from “sporting purdah”.

Pakistan has never previously included women in its teams for the Commonwealth Games and Kiran and Sana Abdul Wahid, 18, form the nation’s first women’s swimming team to compete outside a Muslim country, a team official said.

The advent of the bodysuit, which covers up more than the conventional swimsuit, has played a part in the development.

“The important thing is Pakistan has come out of sporting purdah and done so within the Islamic culture,” team manager Veena Masud said.

“Swimming was not considered a sport in Pakistan until very recently. In elite society many people are members of social clubs and would swim there.

“I became involved in the sport when my son took up swimming competitively. It was not long before they were saying: ‘If the boys swim, why can’t the girls?’”

Masud added: “Women’s swimming was initiated by a tenacious group of women who pushed for competitions to be held.

“We had to observe the strictest of Islamic codes and that meant that when we started having competitions — our first national championships were staged only six years ago — we had to have women-only technical officials and no men were allowed as spectators.”

Pakistan sent swimmers to the second and third Islamic Women’s Games in Iran — “the only place where the rules are observed strictly enough to permit it” — and Masud said they performed well.

“And then bodysuits became the vogue in swimming and it meant it was possible to consider bringing our swimmers to competitions like the Commonwealth Games,” she said.

Masud, secretary of the women’s section of the national swimming federation and an executive member of the national Olympic committee, said there were only two 50-metre pools in Pakistan, a country with a population of 140 million, and neither was available for training. “The girls train in small recreation pools,” she said.

“Sana taught herself to swim. She has won the national championship each year since 1998 in freestyle, butterfly and 400 metres individual medley... She is very highly motivated and she says she wants to meet Ian Thorpe while she is at the Games.”

Kiran, coached by her father, is national 100 and 200 backstroke and 200 individual medley champion.

“We all hope that if they perform well here and set personal bests in Manchester, then they will be encouraged to continue training so that they can qualify for the Olympic Games in 2004,” Masud said.

Wahid makes her first appearance on Tuesday in the 50 metres butterfly heats. Khan’s first event is the 100 metres backstroke on Wednesday.—Reuters