Rio Force 7 from Pakistan
With the smallest contingent ever, of seven athletes and 11 officials, to the Olympics, Pakistanis can’t really be blamed for not expecting much in the medals department in this year’s Rio Olympics. With the last medal, a bronze, earned in field hockey in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, our athletes have been returning empty-handed since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics anyway. Still, one shouldn’t lose hope because miracles, too, can happen.
Two miracles have happened earlier — a bronze in men’s freestyle wrestling in the 1960 Rome Olympics and another in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when a lean boxer from Lyari, Syed Hussain Shah, brought home the bronze medal in middleweight after the hockey team let us down there. In 1960, we had two medals, one gold in field hockey and the individual bronze bagged by the welterweight wrestler (late) Mohammad Bashir. That bronze was like a bonus as the hockey gold medal was expected what with such a great national hockey team.
For several Olympics, ever since Pakistan’s first medal, a silver in hockey in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the nation became rather accustomed to seeing the Pakistan hockey team on the victory podium. The green shirts have three gold (1960, 1968 and 1984), three silver (1956, 1964 and 1972) and two bronze (1976 and 1992) Olympic medals.
A total of seven athletes are representing the country at the Olympics this year. Here’s who they are ...
But after bagging gold in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, something happened to them in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. For the first time in years, Pakistan would have come back home empty-handed from the Olympics had it not been for the bronze medal in boxing.
After a brief rollercoaster ride with several ups and downs for the national hockey team, they have finally hit rock bottom. Things have become so bad that for the first time since Pakistan’s very first appearance in the Games, at the London Olympics in 1948, the national hockey team could not even qualify for the Rio Games.